The Effects of Migration on the Labor Market in Bucharest - Research Paper Example

This research will also be descriptive and explanatory because descriptive data will be collected from the internet, businesses, individuals and journals on the subject area. The effects of migration on the labour market in Romania are an interesting topic for discussion, given the country's recent accession into the European Union (EU) in 2007 (Kotzeva and Pauna 2006). For instance, Romania is considered to have a high percentage of low-cost labour, which would affect other EU members' labour markets (Kotzeva and Pauna 2006), however, the greater issue is that of the highly skilled market.

It's accession into the EU also meant that the labour market in Romania had to become flexible in order to meet market demands and development (Kotzeva and Pauna 2006), but this was a task on its own given the low cost base. Between the years 2000 and 2004, Romania experienced an increase in unemployment of 5% which was attributed to its policies of limiting real wage adjustment at a time of employment decline (Kotzeva and Pauna 2006). . This increase in unemployment could be attributed to the non-employment of various groups within the community, such as women and those in their old age.

For instance, in the UK and other countries it is widely accepted that women make up the bulk of the part time working industry. However, the World Bank (2004) reports that the participation of women in the labour market, has declined due to feeling discouraged with the lack of employment opportunities. This demonstrates that the labour market in Romania, is probably one which caters for a select few. In addition to this, the labour market is threatened with decline as Romania is experiencing a negative population trend (World Bank 2004) which further depletes the labour pool.

This brief background to Romania's labour market is particularly important for studies into the hotel and hospitality industry which are labour intensive industries. The hotel industry will depend largely on the tourist potential of Romania, which it already has, in the form of protected national parks, the Black Sea coast and other eco-heritage sites. However, the flow of tourists to the country is low (Pop et al 2007) which means that the hotel industry is not operating at its peak capacity.

The implications this has for labour is that, more employees are made redundant, as well as job positions due to a long-term decline in business. The other implication is that, the hotel industry ceases to become a desirable employment destination. It can be argued that other countries have periods of low activity and low hotel occupancy, however, the hotel industry thrives in other countries because of the level of