BestJobs Survey: Romanian employees on minus due to inflation; purchasing power drops by 50%

Nine out of ten salary increases received by Romanian employees do not cover inflation, but the purchasing power dropped by 50%, according to opinion poll results made by a recruiting company and released on Thursday.   The high demand of products and services after lifting Covid 19 restrictions and the conflict in Ukraine led to an accelerated inflation growth, to the threshold of 14.5% at the end of May, according to the National Statistics Institute, eroding the Romanians' financial situation. Only some of them received salary increases since the beginning of the year, but in 90% of cases below inflation rate, which led to a significant drop of the purchasing power, even of 50%, according to a survey made by BestJobs recruiting platform.   Only 37% of respondents received a salary raise since the beginning of the year and 12% were backed by employers with extra-salary benefits, such as restaurant tickets or occasional bonuses. The rest of 51% did not benefit from any increase of the monthly income to help them fight inflation, but a quarter were promised salary increases by employers, which have not materialized so far.   Both employees who did not get any salary increases and those for which the increase does not cover the inflation level say they have considered applying for other jobs for salary comparisons (about 44%) and over 19% of respondents are planing to talk to employers to find solutions, according to the survey.   “Even though the latest statistic data offered by INS show an increase of 11.4% of the net average salary for April 2022, reality shows that employees strongly experience the difference between salary level and price level in the market. The situation is not very bright for employers, as they have to supplement salary budgets or to adopt new strategies allowing them to maintain production level. Even despite these economic pressures, the labor market is the most dynamic point of the last two years and a half, both in point of offers and of applications, and this mobility can only be a good sign for Romanian economy,” says Ana Visan, Marketing Manager BestJobs.   Most employees (56%) consider that a salary increase between 10 and 30% could reduce inflation effects in their case, while about a quarter consider they need 31-50%. For 20% of employees, their financial situation would need a 50% increase which could maintain the life style. In this respect, 1 out of 10 Romanian employees is planning to have professional projects besides their jobs, to increase their incomes and to cover the present inflation level.   According to the BestJobs survey, 44% of Romanian employees say that their living standard had substantially changed, because prices had risen equally to that of food, consumer goods, clothing, utilities and fuel.   The survey was made over May 27 – June 19, on a sample of 1,451 Internet users in Romania.   BestJobs is one of the most important online recruiting platforms in Romania. There are over 4.6 million professionals connected to the labor market, over 40,000 jobs and thousands of freelancers, recruiting agents or specialists in professional and personal development ( coaches, mentors, therapists, lawyers and other specialists).