Fewer Employees Earn Over EUR1,200 Per Month Compared With 2008

05.31.2011 ZF English

The number of Romanian employees who earn an average gross monthly salary of more than 5,000 lei (EUR1,200) fell by nearly 25% between 2008 and 2010, with the two years of recession wiping 30,000 off the list of highest salaries in Romania.

The number of Romanian employees who got over RON5,000 in gross monthly income fell to 94,000 in October last year, according to a publication recently released by the country's statistical institute (INS). Once a year, the institute conducts the most complex survey on the number of employees and on average salaries corresponding to October, and delivers the data with a six-month delay, needed for processing.

"Part of these declines were accounted for by salary cuts that affected public sector workers, who had much higher incomes than Romania can afford at present.

On the other hand, during this period some of the salaries have been cut in the private sector because companies no longer boasted the high profits they used to make, and some of the money went into the grey economy, because they were paid in different forms," said financial analyst Dragos Cabat.

Indeed, the most affected by the salary cuts were public sector employees, whose salaries were cut by 25% in July last year, with the Government's austerity measures reflected in the statistics: whereas in 2008 over 29,000 public sector workers earned salaries and collected perks amounting to over RON5,000 gross, their number has fallen to 4,000 in 2010. (EUR1=RON4.1207)