The labour market in Romania in 2022

The year 2022 was a good year in terms of job opportunities

Luiza Moldovan, 28.12.2022, 12:26

Looking back at the labour market in 2022, recruitment specialists say it’s been a good year, in terms of job opportunities. Actually, only those who did not want to, did not work, despite the energy crisis and the issues triggered by the war in Ukraine.

In late March, for example, the National Employment Agency registered 230.3 thousand unemployed people, the unemployment rate then being 2.64%. Quite low, if we think that job offers increased practically from month to month. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate increased slightly, reaching 2.96% in October 2022. The recruitment platform ejobs, for example, registered the largest number of posted jobs in the last twenty years. Ana Călugăru, Head of Communications at ejobs, has more:

2022 was the best year so far for the job market, and when we say best we mean primarily the number of opportunities that appeared on the market for candidates. It was the year with the largest number of jobs in the last 20 years, that is, approximately 420,000 jobs were posted on ejobs.ro from the beginning of the year until now. The fields with the most open positions are retail, services, food industry, tourism, call-center, BPO (Business Process Outsourcing – outsourced services) and transport logistics. In terms of applications, most candidates have submitted their CVs for retail, call-center, BPO, IT, telecom, services and banking jobs. More than 10 million applications were registered during this year. The skills most sought by employers were, with a fairly large increase for this year, digital skills, but we are not talking about an exclusive skills segment. Candidates from absolutely all professional fields, at all levels of experience and for all fields were sought in 2022.

It was undoubtedly the year of the candidates. They contributed to the fine tuning of the labor market. People became more selective and knew what to ask for. The criteria for looking for a job were divided into many categories – from the working atmosphere, to how safe the building they work in is or how far it is from home. Not only the salary was decisive. This made it difficult for recruiters, who no longer found people so easily. Ana Călugaru:

It was a year, let’s say, somewhat more difficult for recruiters, because it was not so easy to find people for the positions they had open for 2021 and even for 2020, but the fact that so many new jobs appeared in the market shows that it was a good year for companies, after all, because businesses went to full speed.

It’s interesting to observe how the dynamics of the labor market change, sometimes radically. We have witnessed, say recruitment specialists, truly unexpected twists and turns. This subtle exercise of power tipped the balance in favor of the candidates, but experts now expect something else. Here is what Ana Călugăru predicts:

If we talk about the employee-employer dynamic, yes, it has changed. Unfortunately, in the last two to three years, we are seeing very sharp 180-degree turns and a cyclicality with a fairly short turnaround time. If in 2019 it was a candidate’s market, in 2020 it became an employer’s market, in 2021 it started to become a candidate’s market again and in 2022 it was exclusively a candidate’s market. Economic signals, somehow, make us believe that 2023 will tilt the balance a bit in favor of companies. These things are not necessarily very good signals for the market, because any movement of this kind creates imbalances that affect one or the other.

After the pandemic, many companies called their people back to the office. After the experience of working remotely, few expected it. The happiest were those who managed to negotiate a hybrid way of working, as Ana Călugaru told us:

Regarding remote jobs, yes, 2022 was a year when companies called their people back to the office, but not to the extent we expected. At the level of 2022, 7.3% of the total number of posted jobs, respectively 30,000, were still remote jobs. We see, however, that towards the end of the year the number of jobs that can be done from home began to decrease, a sign that 2023 will be a year in which we will already see a massive and perhaps even definitive return to office.

In 2022, candidates were much more active in looking for new professional opportunities compared to 2021, applying, on average, to 6 jobs per month, twice as many as in 2021, according to the data provided by another online recruitment platform, BestJobs Romania. Moreover, the total number of candidates was 62% higher in 2022 compared to the previous year. Among the candidates who completed their CV on this platform, 54% mentioned at least one previous professional experience. 35% of them specified at least one foreign language among their knowledge and 14% that they had a driver’s license. Almost half (47%) wanted to be contacted by recruiters with job offers, even if they were not actively looking for a job, and 5% were willing to relocate for the new job. 98% of the candidates stated that they wanted to know the salary or salary range for the job they were applying for, and most of them applied mainly for jobs with the salary disclosed. (MI)