Getting a good
\nemployment agreement has in recent years become an impossible mission for many
\nRomanians, especially people over 45 years of age, who at present account for
\n28% of the total number of unemployed people in Romania. No longer in their
\nprime, these people are unemployed at a time when their value, experience and
\nskills, accrued over the years, should be rewarded. According to the National
\nEmployment Agency, at the end of 2015, 56.56% of Romania’s unemployed were over
\n40 years of age. Of these, more than half were aged 50 or above. The majority
\nof the unemployed now look to vocational retraining schemes, trying to learn a
\nnew trade after a lifetime of working in the same place. But this too is no
\nguarantee they will get a job. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Such is the case of Vasile from Piatra Neamt. He
\nis 50 years old and has been unemployed for several years:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
In the last three years since I’ve been
\nunemployed, I have been looking for a job, but it’s been very difficult. People
\nover 50 have a hard time getting a job. You go to an employer, he says he will
\nhire you, you file your resume and you wait, but in the end you don’t get an
\nanswer. They hire instead people who are younger than you. After I applied for
\nunemployment benefits, I took up vocational retraining classes: I studied
\naccounting and IT, but even with these diplomas, nobody would hire me.
\nEmployers look for qualified people, they don’t want people to train themselves.
\n<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Constantin is from Bucharest, is 48
\nyears old and he too took up vocational retraining classes, which have done
\nlittle to earn him a job:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
In 2010 I was laid off and offered no
\nposition to retrain for. The state spends huge amounts of money simply because
\nit doesn’t provide training for other trades that are sought for on the labour
\nmarket. The Labour Ministry should work with other public institutions. They
\nachieve little by training people if they can’t place them on the market. They
\ndon’t help you with anything. They give you employment benefits all year round.
\nInstead of training people, they would rather hire people straight off the
\nmarket. If you don’t have the specific skills, your chances of getting a job
\nare slim. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Therefore, people like Constantin
\nand Vasile face a lot of discrimination, even though the Romanian legislation
\nspecifically forbids age-specific discrimination in the field of employment.
\nThe anti-discrimination coalition does help you identify the public authorities
\nwhere you can file a complaint describing the inequity or bias you are faced
\nwith. Teodora Ion-Rotaru, a PR and communication officer with the
\nanti-discrimination Coalition has more: <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The workplace is the only other place
<\/p>\n
Every year, the
<\/p>\n Daniela
<\/p>\n In March 2016, there were 171 vocational
<\/p>\n
Finding a good job has in recent years become an impossible mission for many Romanians aged over 45.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141888,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42997],"tags":[30268,43486],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-141887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society-today","tag-unemployment","tag-vocational-training"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
\nwhere discrimination becomes more visible. Elderly people are faced with such
\nforms of discrimination, but we, at the Anti-discrimination Coalition can help
\nthem, by providing them free-of-charge judicial counseling, straight on our
\nwebsite, anti-discriminare.ro. These people can talk directly to a legal expert
\nabout the methods they can use to prove they have been subject to age-specific
\ndiscrimination. They can also learn about the kind of evidence they can provide
\nin this respect, whether the situation they are confronted with actually
\ninvolves forms of discrimination, as well as about the institutions they might
\nfurther refer their case to. European studies show that Romania is one of the
\nEuropean countries with the highest rates of discrimination. On the other hand,
\nRomanians’ perception of discrimination is lower. Romanians don’t perceive
\ndiscrimination the same way as other foreign citizens, neither do they fully
\nknow their rights in order to be able to defend themselves when discriminated
\nagainst. It’s very important that people should notify the authorities when
\nfacing discrimination. The anti-discrimination law is there, it is
\ncomprehensive and covers the labour field. But in order to be enforced, we
\nencourage people facing discrimination to address the Anti-discrimination
\nCoalition and go to the relevant institutions to seek justice.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nNational Employment Agency organizes vocational training programs, aimed at
\nensuring the growth and diversification of professional skills, with the
\npurpose of guaranteeing mobility and reintegration on the labour market. In
\n2016 the Agency will organize 2,200 such programs for approximately 42,000
\npeople, who will benefit from free-of-charge professional training. Last year,
\nas a result of the measures taken under the Employment Program, some 108
\nthousand people aged over 45 were reintegrated on the labour market. <\/p>\n
\nStirbu, the head of the Communication Department with the National Employment
\nAgency, gave us more details:<\/p>\n
\ntraining programs running nationwide, attended by 3252 people. Most such
\nprograms qualify people as salesclerks, cooks, data operators, plumbers,
\nhairdressers, manicurists or waiters. Most people who attended these classes
\nwere from Brasov, Bihor, Hunedoara, Mures and Covasna counties. For further
\ndetails, people can address our territorial branches in the area of their
\nresidence.<\/p>\n
\n
\nAll employers who
\nhire various categories of unemployed people will this year be given subsidies
\nranging from 110 to 170 euros for every person they hire. Basically, with the
\nhelp of these state subsidies, employers will be able to cover part of their
\nsalaries and still save money. In the first eight months of last year, as a
\nresult of enforcing the measures provided in the Employment Program, 8,812
\npeople aged over 45 years and 142 people who can retire within five years were
\nreintegrated on the labour market. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"