Only 69% of Romanians aged between 20 and 64 are in employment, meaning that almost a third of the population does not work.
Romania’s national trade union has held a protest outside the parliament building to demand lower taxation on wages.
Around 3,000 union members took part, angry at what they call a hostile labour market and accusing the political elite of prioritising capital.
That has led to some five million Romanians to emigrate in search of better salaries abroad.
“We are overwhelmed by taxes and fees, they must be lowered,” said one protester, “Especially taxes for work, that way we would be able to raise our standard of living and we would not have to go abroad”.
Protesters claim that more than 42 percent of their gross income goes to the state, compared to the EU average of 38 percent.
Low wages and high taxation caused Romania to register the third lowest employment rate in the EU in 2023, after Italy and Greece, according to Eurostat data.
Only 69 percent of Romanians aged between 20 and 64 are in employment, meaning that almost a third of the population does not work.
“At the moment we have an extremely high level of taxation,” said the president of the National Trade Union Bloc, Dumitru Costin, “Moreover, we have problems with almost two million citizens who did not pay even a cent in tax on their incomes or contributions to pensions or health last year.”
In 2023, Romania had an employed population of 7.7 million people, but only 5.6 million people paid social security contributions. 2.1 million employed people did not pay contributions, although, in some cases, they received benefits.
Kontas Management, an accounting services company based in Bucharest, says the base income tax rate is set at 10 percent but mandatory employee contributions to the social fund, health insurance, unemployment benefits and the state budget push the percentage of gross salary taken by the state up far higher.
