The Save the Children Romania organization opens in Bucharest a day center for Ukrainian refugee children. The center is subordinate to the General Directorate of Social Assistance and Child Protection of Bucharest’s District 6, where the little ones will benefit from homework help, hot meals, Romanian language courses and recreational activities. Save the Children reports that 40 children between the ages of 6 and 11 will attend the center daily, from Monday to Friday, between 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., and the organization will cover the nursery and kindergarten fees for another 60 children between the ages of 2 and 5 years. Three out of five Ukrainian refugee parents in Romania do not have a job, while only 17% are employed with a contract in Romania, 11% work remotely for a company outside our country and 7% are employed without an employment contract , according to an investigation carried out in February by Save the Children Romania. From the beginning of the war in Ukraine until February 29, 21,617 Ukrainian citizens were registered in the ANOFM records, of which 14,727 were women. Of these, 2,784 entered the labor market, 1,890 being women. 65% of refugees indicated the lack of communication skills in Romanian as the main impediment to employment, while 54% said they could not work as they had to take care of a family member. In this context, Save the Children Romania showed that the day center project also aims to facilitate the integration of the mothers of these children into the labor market.
The employment rate of the able-bodied population, aged between 15 and 64, was 63% in 2023, down 0.1 percentage points compared to 2022, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics in Bucharest. The employment rate was higher for men, 71.7%, compared to 54.3% for women. By residential area, the employment rate was higher in the urban area, 68.6%, compared to 57.1% in the rural area. The employment rate of young people between 15 and 24 years old was 18.7%, and that of elderly people, aged between 55 and 64 years, 51%. The highest level of employment rate for people of working age was registered among graduates of higher education, 89.8%. Salaried workers, whose number decreased by 60,000 compared to the previous year, still held the largest share, 85.7% in the total employed population. In 2023, self-employed and unpaid family workers accounted for 13% of the employed population. Of the total number of employed persons, 11.9% worked in the agricultural sector, 33.2% in industry and construction, and 54.9% in services, the NIS also states.
Police workers at the Nadlac 2 crossing point in the west of Romania, on the border with Hungary, caught 16 people who were trying to leave the country illegally, hidden in two vehicles. The drivers, a Romanian citizen and a Bulgarian one, were transporting, according to the documents accompanying the goods, floorboards, beds and mattresses for commercial companies from Italy and the Netherlands. Following the thorough control of the means of transport, 16 foreign nationals from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Iran were discovered hidden in the cargo compartments, among the transported goods. They had entered Romania legally on the basis of work visas and intended to leave the country illegally to reach Western Europe. The drivers are now being investigated for migrant trafficking, while the foreigners hidden in the vehicles, for attempting to fraudulently cross the state border. (MI)