What exactly does it make it difficult to enter the labour market? For those with or without previous experience, for youth or for those engaged in subsistence agriculture? We propose an analysis from the point of view of two barriers: institutional barriers, related to the norms that govern the economic activity, and barriers regarding the competences load, related to the involvement in education and training.

Barriers related to the education and training. The project “Initiatives on the Labour Market in the Rural Region”- an answer

The last type of barrier was given an answer by the project “Initiatives on the Labour Market in the Rural Region”, financed by the European Social Fund, through the Sectorial Operational Programme Human Resources Development 2007-2013, being implemented by CADI-Eleutheria Foundation in partnership with Romanian Training Institute Association and Romanian Institute for Education and Social Inclusion.

The project supported the integration of approximately 850 persons in the labour market, through an integrated program that wad adapted to the necessities and profile of the youth unemployed from the rural region and those engaged in the subsistence agriculture. The program contained the following pack of services, carried out between March 2015 and December 2016:

1. Vocational interests testing and individual sessions regarding professional counselling for 740 participants in the project.

2. 57 personal development and counselling group sessions for about 820 participants. The sessions targeted the development of a behaviour based on initiative, entrepreneurship and responsibility towards their own career and developing self-organizing abilities for long-term objectives.

3. 25 seminars for raising awareness to the healthy lifestyle, seminars that reunited over 500 participants.

4. 49 courses on profession training for over 735 participants in spheres of activity like: worker in the field of commerce, construction worker, chambermaid, pastry cook, hairdresser, worker in cloth factories, security guard, hotel receptionist, salesperson and secretarial assistant.

5. 57 job- clubs for over 710 participants in which the participants learned how to properly apply for and act during a job interview.

The most important result of the project was focused on the ratio of people that entered or re-entered the labour market until the end of the project: 20% of the participants in the project. Until this moment, 154 persons have been hired under an individual employment contract. We estimate that until 15th of December, the last day of the project, we will have 170 persons employed as a result of the project.

Institutional barriers when entering the labour market. CADI-Eleutheria prepared a set of analyses regarding the institutional barriers when entering the labour market. These analyses have been published at the beginning of December in a special supplement dedicated to “Revista 22” (“22 Magazine”).

Our approaches focus on two big types of institutions, sets of rules that govern the interaction between social actors and economic actors.1) Institutions that govern the education supply and production and 2) Institutions that govern the economic activity on the labour market.

1. Institutions that govern the education supply and production

Both the employers and employees are reporting a disconnection between the competences formed in school and those required by companies for their own well-being. An important source for this disconnection is the belief that there is a measure that fits all: the central planner of education claims that it knows all the individual needs of the future employees and employers and that it can build a system that can properly respond to these needs. In the same matter, as members of the European Union, we gave up the belief that the state can plan the economy, now we still do not seem to give up the belief that the education can be centralized planned.

This type of barrier can be overcome if we assure the diversity of the education services’ suppliers, fact supported by the European Social Fund itself. In this way, local organizations in partnership with each other, identify local training needs, identify what the local employers ask for and create personalized and adapted educational programs.

2. Institutions that govern the economic activity on the labour market

The demand for labour is the result of investments and sustainable economic growth. The employers with prosperous businesses need workforce to manage their businesses. The rules that govern the economic activity will influence its intensity, namely the number of employees that the entrepreneurs will be able to hire in order to keep their businesses and develop them.

The bigger the cost of having economic activities, the lesser business will be started and developed and, therefore, lesser demand for labour will exist.

In 2015, the World Bank places Romania on the 37th position regarding the ease of doing business. Important barriers are raise in the face of entrepreneurial initiatives by paying taxes, registering properties or starting a business. These limits to the economic freedom have a cost reflected in the expense prices paid by the final consumers and in the employees’ small net salaries.

The minimum wage and the stiff legal provisions of the Labour Code are berries through which the one without previous experience are kept out of the labour market or in grey economy. In reality, the minimum wage represents an advantage for the employees that ore organized in a labour union or those from the urban conglomeration, but represents a disadvantage for those coming from the rural region or for the youth people who are not yet prepared.

These are just a few from the thoughtful topics that we present to you for analysis, including the results from the projects implementation in the rural region and the research and analysis concerns of the CADI-Eleutheria associates.

We consider that is essential to support the measures taken in order to increase the access to education through additional encouraging measures to entrepreneurial initiatives, and costs’ reduction measures imposed to the economic environment.

Project implemented by: CADI-Eleutheria Foundation, Romanian Training Institute Association (IRT) and Romanian Institute for Education and Social Inclusion (IRESIS).