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Romania: The number of jobless will rise by 100,000 in the next two months
( 06 / November / 2009 )
The president of the General Union of Romanian Industrialists – UGIR 1903, Cezar Corici, forecasts the number of unemployed will increase by roughly 100,000 over the next two months, with the jobless to total over 725,000 people, Mediafax reports.
‘You should expect yet another 100,000 unemployed in the next two months,’ Corici told a press conference. Unemployment rate rose 0.3 per cent in September to 6.9 per cent, with the number of registered unemployed equaled 625,140 people, up nearly 24,000 from August, according to data by the National Agency for Workforce Occupancy. In September 2008, the unemployment rate stood at 3.9 per cent. The International Monetary Funds projects an unemployment rate of 9.6 per cent at year’s end, higher than the 8.9 per cent rate agreed in the stand-by Accord negotiated last spring. Unemployment could rise to 10 per cent in 2010 and go down to 8.3 per cent in 2011, according to the Fund’s projections following the first assessment of the stand-by agreement with Romania. The state is the main blockage element in the relationship with companies, with the state owing RON 8 bln to economic operators, Cezar Corici stated, who specified that state-owed debts includes yet-to-be-reimbursed and unpaid VAT taxes, as well as subvention delays.
He reckons the state issuing distraints on bank accounts for companies’ failure to pay budgetary debts as ‘aberrant’, as long as those companies have to recover amounts bigger than those owed. Further more, UGIR warns Government and Parliament that it will use all the legal means available to block the passage of the 2010 budget unless authorities have previous consultations with employers’ associations and trade unions. ‘If Romania’s budget isn’t discussed beforehand with social partners, we will do our utmost legally speaking to stop it. As of now, there is no clear vision over the budget and, at any rate, not one to reflect economic demands,’ the UGIR 1903 president told a press conference, adding that data presented by the Finance Ministry show public spending next year going to be indexed with an inflation rate against the inflation estimate for 2009.
Source: nineoclock.ro