The most acute staff shortage is in the public administration and defence sectors, where nearly 8,000 vacancies remain unfilled. Healthcare and social care are also experiencing staff shortages – 4,700 vacancies – whilst the education sector is short of 4,300 teachers.
Despite thousands of unfilled posts, public sector expenditure has risen to a record high. The Ministry of Finance estimates personnel costs in the 2026 budget at nearly 33 billion lei (by way of comparison, the figure was 17 billion in 2020).
The government cites wage levels as the main reason for the staff shortage. However, economic experts agree that the staff shortage is caused by a complex set of deep-rooted structural factors, with the wage imbalance being merely the tip of the iceberg.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the highest number of vacancies across the economy as a whole in the first half of the year was recorded, apart from the public sector, in transport (6.5 per cent of the total number of jobs) and in the entertainment industry (6.2 per cent).
Employers in the service sector and the IT sector officially report far fewer vacancies: on average, 2 per cent of the jobs registered in those sectors.
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