Romanian Ministry of Economy Starts Campaign Targeting Diaspora: We Have Jobs for You, Especially in Hospitality!

More than 1 million Romanians who were living and working abroad have come back home since the start of the pandemic. Some of them thought about returning or even went back to their adoptive countries as soon as the situation allowed, but some have no jobs to return to. We talk here mostly about jobs in hospitality in countries like Italy, Spain or Great Britain. Still, as the tourism industry is seriously hit across the globe, there are little chances for hundreds of thousands Romanians to get back to their jobs before the pandemic in the next few months or even in the next year.

This is why the Romanian Government decided to start a campaign dedicated to the Romanians recently come back from other countries or to the ones living abroad. The campaign is called “Live, Work and Welcome the Romanian way!” and the message of the campaign is “We wait all of you back home! We have jobs for you, especially in hospitality!”.

The officials are optimistic about the campaign and think this will persuade the Romanians from Diaspora to choose jobs in Romania. Yet, one cannot avoid noticing the contradiction: while the Government try to persuade Romanians with the jobs in hospitality, the same Government keeps the restaurants closed for the last 4 months.

The situation for the restaurant owners is critical in Romania as the authorities, despite their desperate cry for help, keep the restaurants closed indoors, apart from the terraces. Tens of thousands of restaurant owners are close to bankruptcy and the long waited help from the Government is not yet in sight.

Romanian PM promised to help the restaurant owners and all the other SMEs’ entrepreneurs affected by this crisis. There is a catch, though: the help is to come only after the contracts will be signed at the end of this year. Besides, for getting Governmental help, the entrepreneurs must accomplish conditions which cannot be fulfilled any longer. Among them, all the affected businesses must have a certificate of emergency, which ceased to be issued on June 15, long before the launching of this program. On top of that, there is another condition: all the restaurants whose owners tried to survive the crisis and started delivery do not qualify for the Governmental help. All these conditions have been published in the draft of the law published on the Ministry of Economy website.

In other words, the intention of the Romanian authorities to keep the Diaspora in the country is good, but the message of the campaign does not match the existing situation, but on the contrary. According to unions, 50% of all hospitality locations will close their doors until the end of the year because of the crisis.

Where will be the promised jobs, then?