Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[SharonB]

Could this eventually solve OUR illegal immigrant problem? We only have about 12 to 20 million illegally here now. The current est. population of Mexico is 108,700,891 as of July 2007. The illegal immigrant population is estimated at between 12 and 20 million with the overwhelming number coming from Mexico. We are looking at roughly 12 to 24% of their total population.
Now to the article about worker shortages.

With so many of its own citizens working abroad, businesses are turning to migrant workers from abroad to fill the lack of workers.

By Bogdan Asaftei in Bucharest
That’s why many windows from the capital of Romania are full of notices where workers are required. The notices can be seen in almost every shop window in Bucharest.
“We are hiring salesmen for our store”, reads one. “Our company is looking for a driver,” reads another. “Chef needed. Good wages and fees offered. No experience required,” says a third.
The reason? A sudden and dramatic labour shortage, which includes professional and blue-collar workers and even those without any skills.
The cause of the labour shortage is a double phenomenon: an economic recovery, which has increased the total number of job openings, and the mass flight of the existing workforce to the West in search of higher wages.
The entire range of professional and non-professional workers is “under siege” in Romania because so many workers have left for America or the European Union.
According to most statistics, Romania has now lost around 2 million working-age citizens, which is about 20 per cent of the total labour force.
Like most Balkan countries, Romania has long suffered from a haemorrhage of workers. However, unlike some of its neighbours, Romania’s own economy has developed rapidly in recent years, faster than many expected.
Unfortunately, this growth is being threatened by many problems, the most important being a shortage of working men.
The economic turnaround – from high unemployment to a labour shortage - has caught many Romanians by surprise.
After the fall of the Ceausescu dictatorship, Romania’s economy was in dire straits. Most big factories built as showpieces in the Socialist era proved hopelessly inefficient in comparison to plants in the West. With their out-of-date technology, they could not compete in terms of pricing or quality.
They had two choices: to find new owners with enough capital to make large investments and so modernize these plants, or to close entirely.
Even when powerful foreign investors took over the factories, the workers still tended to leave the area, having realized they could earn more abroad.
Meanwhile, in the last few years, Romania’s economy revived, leading to a real boom. Romania’s economic growth had an extraordinary boom in the last years. In 2003 and 2004, the economy grew at an annual rate of 8,4 per cent, going down at 4,1 per cent in 2005, but recovering in the next years: 7,7 per cent in 2006 and over 6,5 per cent the forecast for 2007.
However, despite of these improvements, the Romanian labour force has continued to leave.
To counter this phenomenon, the authorities have resolved on a two-prong strategy: firstly, to try to lure Romanian workers back to the country, and secondly, failing that, to let people from other countries come to work in Romania.
The government decided at the end of February to create an intergovernmental group to evaluate the number of Romanians gone abroad to work. Moreover, this group proposed an information campaign and incentives targeting these Romanians.
The authorities have been at pains to convince Romanians working abroad to return home, offering various social and economic benefits, like better wages, free lunch tickets, transport reimbursements, lower cost education for their children or pension funds.
But this campaign has not had much resonance among Romanians outside the country.
Therefore, Plan B has kicked in - allowing foreigners to work in Romania.
Daniela Nicoleta Andreescu, an official in the Ministry of Labour, Family and Equal Opportunities, said the number of foreigners coming to Romania has increased since the country joined the EU – a development that makes it easier still for Romanians to find work abroad.
The number would not grow to a high level, he added, because the rights of foreigners to work in Romania was being closely regulated.
Officially, only 9,000 foreign workers were present this March in Romania, most of them - 2,459 – from Turkey, followed by 1,414 Chinese nationals and 1,356 from neighbouring Moldova.
A well-known example of the phenomenon of legal economic migration to Romania comes from Bacau, in the north of the country.
At this textile plant, there are dozens of Chinese workers today. “The Romanians left to work in Spain and that’s why we have to look for workers from China,” Sorina Nicolescu, the owner of the factory, said.
Their salaries are worth only around 200 euros a month, well below what skilled Romanians can hope to earn elsewhere in Europe. But the Chinese workers accept it, saying it is three times as much as they would earn in their native towns.
However, many analysts believe the real number of foreigners working in Romania is far higher than the 9,000 officialy registered, as many foreigners work illegally.
“We cannot provide a real number of these workers, but the figures are much higher. And there is a huge need for these workers,” declared Florin Pogonaru, chairman of the Association of Businessmen from Romania, AOAR.
Pogonaru believes multi-national construction companies will have the largest draw followed by other medium and small enterprises.
“However, in ten years this migration phenomenon is likely to decrease considerably, as the economic gap between Romania and Western countries diminishes ”, he added.

Bogdan Asaftei is WirtschaftsBlatt Correspondent for Romania and Bulgaria and a Balkan Insight contributor. Balkan Insight is BIRN’s online publication.
http://www.focus-fen.net/?id=l8399
Just food for thought.
SharonB