Labor Market: ANOFM Program a Chance for Over 190,000 People

Finding a job is not an easy task, even though employers claim that the labor market is still unbalanced, and they struggle to find personnel. A total of 190,039 people were employed in 2023 as a result of the implementation of the National Program for Labor Force Employment by the county agencies for labor force employment and the Bucharest municipality, according to a press release from the National Agency for Employment (ANOFM). Out of the total number of people employed by December 31, 2023, 87,593 are over 45 years old, 31,863 are between 35 and 45 years old, 31,793 are between 25 and 35 years old, and 38,790 are young people under 25. Of the total employed, 42,065 are NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) youth. The number of women employed is 90,171, and that of men is 99,868, their share in the total number of employed people being 47.45% and 52.55%, respectively. Based on residence, 98,603 people employed during the reference period come from urban areas, while 91,436 are from rural areas. The education level of the people for whom a job was identified shows that most have high school education (64,856), followed by secondary education (45,505), vocational education (43,002), with 19,671 having university degrees. Out of the total people employed through ANOFM in 2023, 70,325 fall into the category of those with low and very low employability. According to the source, categorizing employability is done based on profiling the individuals registered in ANOFM records. A ranking of counties with the most people employed shows that Bucharest is in the first place (21,166), followed by Timiş (10,050) and Buzău (7,572). In 2023, the number of people who benefited from assistance for registration as job seekers, for social protection regarding the payment of unemployment benefits or inclusion in active measures, was 494,002 people. For labor market integration, individuals seeking employment, registered in the database of the territorial labor force employment agency in whose area they reside, benefit from personalized packages of active measures provided by Law No. 76/2002 on unemployment insurance and stimulating labor force employment.