At the beginning of 2017, both NGOs and employers’ organisations brought to the attention of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Labour the issue of the insufficient number of native workers to cover Romania’s labour market needs. However, the government approved a quota for 2018 of 7,000 work permits for labour migrants (i.e. third-country nationals with a visa granted on the basis of a work permit), which was only a slight increase compared with 2017. The number soon proved to underestimate labour market needs.

In July 2018, the General Inspectorate for Immigration, backed by the National Agency for Employment (part of the Ministry of Labour), requested an increase to the labour migrant quota to more than double the initially allocated number of 7,000. In particular, employers advocated for increased labour supply in the construction sector, where the National Agency for Employment reported over 31,464 vacancies during the first half of 2018. Thus, the government has now approved an additional 8,000 work permits for labour migrants.

According to the General Inspectorate for Immigration, 4,395 of the work permits were issued by July 2018, with the majority of their holders originating from Vietnam, Turkey and Nepal. The Labour Inspection attested that there are currently 17,089 third-country nationals working in Romania, most of them from Turkey, China, Republic of Moldova and Vietnam. However, these statistics are not broken down by immigration status, so the number of migrants who are employed through a work permit (rather than other legal statuses that allow employment) cannot be determined. In Romania, labour migrants can benefit from the same integration measures (language training, information and counselling sessions) as other third-country nationals with legal residence.

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