PSD's Ciolacu: One third of Romania's private sector employees, paid with minimum wage

One third of employees from the private sector of Romania benefit from minimum wage, declared, on Wednesday evening, for the private broadcaster Romania TV, the chairman of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), Marcel Ciolacu. He manifested his concern that 1,700,000 Romanians are currently paid the minimum wage, and when they will retire they will have small pensions. "Minimum wage is an instrument to help people who are able to work but do not have any qualifications. For this, there is the minimum wage. It is a form of social protection. When a young person finishes high school, does not pass his/her GED, has no qualification, I hire him/her (and pay) with minimum wage. Afterwards, one needs to find leverage in order to stimulate SMEs, companies to give that person a qualification. The jobs today that do not require qualifications are very few. Do you know how many Romanians are paid with minimum wage at this moment in the private sector? 1,700,000, a third of the Romanian private sector employees. (...) We always used trickery in order to fool people and when they reach retirement we will have these discussions that the pensioners cannot handle it anymore, because we fooled them and they keep getting fooled for a long time and they end up with small pensions," the social-democrat leader said. Marcel Ciolacu believes that a reform regarding minimum wage should have been included in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). "Such a reform should have been included in PNRR, sustainable and to prove to the people that we are ending a cycle. The company took on a young person without any qualifications. It gives the person a 12-24 months to acquire a qualification. You, the state, support this qualification or the costs of it and then the person is paid over the minimum wage," Ciolacu added.AGERPRES(RO - author: Cristian Lupascu, editor: Antonia Nita; EN - author: Catalin Cristian Trandafir, editor: Maria Voican)