We Are the Cheapest Europeans

Romania has the cheapest work force in Europe but the employees that pay the highest taxes, shows the country economical memorandum belonging to the World Bank.

The Romanians still have the smallest salaries in comparison to the employees of the European Union and to the countries in Central and Eastern Europe, shows the study made by the World Bank (WB), presented by euractiv.ro website.

POOR. Though the costs for the manpower have increased - expressed in euro - Romania, remains, together with Bulgaria, the country with the cheapest working force from the candidates for the EU (before May 2004), say the WB experts. The cost of the work force has increased with 48% from 1995 to 2002. But for a value of about 1.5 euros per hour in industry and services our country is much below the situation of the countries that adhered the EU in May and more than five times cheaper than Portugal, the EU country with the cheapest manpower (about 8 euros per hour), shows the quoted study.

WB also cautions that the Romanian employees are burdened with the high social contributions. In Romania, they are as many as 49.5% of the gross income, high above the values registered by Bulgaria (44%), Poland (39%), The Czech Republic (43%), Hungary (41%) or the EU (37%). The highest part of the Romanian burden is the contribution to the pension system - 31.4%.

WORKING WITHOUT A CONTRACT. Caused by a chronic disequilibrium between the number of taxpayers and the retired persons, as well as by the inadequate collecting of the social contribution, high taxes will not solve the problem of the welfare work budget, which is in a high deficit (1% of the GDP) in the last years, say the WB leaders. Moreover, they are an obstacle for creating places of employment and they push the working force towards the grey sector, they stated. Actually, working without a contract is estimated, in our country, at 24% of the work force, only Bulgaria being in front of us from this point of view.