The STUDIA UNIVERSITATIS BABEŞ-BOLYAI issue article summary

The summary of the selected article appears at the bottom of the page. In order to get back to the contents of the issue this article belongs to you have to access the link from the title. In order to see all the articles of the archive which have as author/co-author one of the authors mentioned below, you have to access the link from the author's name.

 
       
         
    STUDIA SOCIOLOGIA - Issue no. 2 / 2023  
         
  Article:   LABOUR FORCE COMPOSITION AND LABOUR SHORTAGE IN NORTH-WESTERN ROMANIA: A CROSS-COUNTRY COMPARISON.

Authors:  IONUȚ FÖLDES, ZOLTÁN MIHÁLY, CRISTIAN POP.
 
       
         
  Abstract:  
DOI: 10.2478/subbs-2023-0007
Article history: Available online June 2024; Available print June 2024.
pp. 35-55

VIEW PDF

FULL PDF

The paper analyses the labour force composition of two adjacent counties in north-west Romania: Maramureș and Sălaj. Regionally, employers stress the lack of available labour force and resort to commuter networks from nearby rural areas and immigrant labour. Why labour shortage? It is argued that Romania’s FDI-reliant export-led growth model factors in. Namely, the growth model’s reliance on low-cost labour that reduces employment incentives to a minimum (often minimum wage) and employment in repetitive labour-intensive activities make the prospect less attractive. If technological upgrading – requiring skilled employees – is absent, regional labour availability tends to be an issue. Alternative subsistence methods are favoured: seasonal transnational migration, household agricultural subsistence and remittances from relatives. Tying livelihood to families and households, these methods pool resources to replace (even if in part) wage labour under global market-dependency conditions.

Keywords: labour force; labour shortage; FDI; export-led growth model; Romania
 
         
     
         
         
      Back to previous page