10,000 state employees to be laid off, sources say

About 10,000 state employees would allegedly be laid off to save money for the budget and the first lists have begun to appear in the media.

It is about the plan of Finance Minister Eugen Teodorovici to reform the budgetary apparatus. Liberal Senator Florin Citu released on Saturday a list with the lay-offs plan from the public system, which reportedly would start in two-week’s time, without compensatory payments, adevarul.ro reports.

“In the ministries, Liviu Dragnea has decided to keep only the people loyal to PSD. I reveal, for the first time, the table with the maximum number of employees in each ministry,” Citu wrote on Facebook.

The provisional list shows that overall about 10,000 positions will be cut.

For example, the number of positions with the Foreign Affairs Ministry (MAE) will be cut from 2,487 to 2,100, meaning about 400 layoffs.

The Ministry of Regional Development will have a maximum number of positions of 800 against 1,004 in February. The Transport Ministry will have 380 positions instead of 579, the Culture Ministry will have 165 positions instead of 434.

Finance Minister Eugen Teodorovici said last Thursday that the next budget rectification will consider the restructuring of the ministries in the following 45 days.

The budget expenditures with the state employees have reached record highs in Romania, and are related to the highest level of employees in the public sector, i.e. 26% (1.23 million employees). Of these, about 800,000 work with the central public administration and 43,000 with the local public administration.

The state expenses with the public sector employees have increased by 25% in the past year, i.e. by 50% in the past three years and have almost doubled in the past six years, the figures analysed by economist Iancu Guda reveal, according to adevarul.ro. This year the expenses have also increased: 24% against January 2018. The overall wages in the public sector have reached RON 7.6 billion in January 2019.

The analysts say the increase of public expenditures result from the over dimension of the public apparatus – one in four Romanians work in the state sector, the highest share in Europe. The gap between the wages in public sector and the ones in the private sector has reached almost 70%, the highest in Europe and in the history of Romania in the past three decades, the same economist says. The share of expenses with the public sector staff in the GDP has reached almost 11% in 2018, record level for Romania in the past 30 years.

 

budget expendituresbudget rectificationDevelopment MinistryEugen TeodoroviciFinance ministryflorin cituForeign MinistrylayoffsLiviu Dragneaministriespsdpublic sectorstate employees
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