Romania and the New Economy of Migration: Costs, Decision, Networks, Development

15 Pages Posted: 14 Oct 2012

See all articles by Grigore Silasi

Grigore Silasi

Jean Monnet European Centre for Excellence; West University of Timisoara

Ovidiu Laurian Simina

Timisoara Centre for Migration and Mobility Studies - SISEC; Ministry of Internal Affairs

Date Written: 2008

Abstract

In some earlier studies, as a response to the media debate during the hot summer of 2006, regarding Romania’s emigration as following the accession to the EU, we were saying that the fear of mass migration from Romania was not justified. Romania is not only a gateway for the East-West international migration (like Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece for the South-North direction), but a labor market in need of workers. Nowadays, almost two years after January 1st, 2007, the facts prove our prediction as being true. While a big part of the labor force is already migrated, mostly to the SE Europe (some 2.5m workers are cited to be abroad, with both legal and illegal/irregular status, even before the EU enlargement), the Romanian companies could not find local workers to use them in order to benefit from the money inflow targeting Romania in the light of its new membership to the European Union (foreign investments and European post accession funds). Instead of increasing the salaries, the local employers rather prefer to ‘import’ workers from poorer countries (Moldavians, Chinese, Ukrainians and others who still accept a lower wage as compared to the medium wage in Romania, but bigger enough as compared to those from their countries of origin).

Keywords: labor migration, labour market distortions, South-Eastern Europe Syndrome, network effect, decision making, motivation, need for esteem

JEL Classification: F22, F24, J11, J61, J70, O15, O52, R23

Suggested Citation

Silasi, Grigore and Simina, Ovidiu Laurian, Romania and the New Economy of Migration: Costs, Decision, Networks, Development (2008). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2161488 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2161488

Grigore Silasi

Jean Monnet European Centre for Excellence ( email )

Blvd. V. Parvan 4 Timisoara 300223
Timis
Romania

West University of Timisoara ( email )

Bd. Vasile Parvan nr.4
Timisoara 300223, Timis 330023
Romania

Ovidiu Laurian Simina (Contact Author)

Timisoara Centre for Migration and Mobility Studies - SISEC ( email )

Bd. Vasile Parvan nr.4
Timisoara, 330023
Romania

HOME PAGE: http://www.migratie.ro

Ministry of Internal Affairs ( email )

1A, Piata Revolutiei
Bucharest, 010086
Romania

HOME PAGE: http://www.mai.gov.ro

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