Labour migration to Romania has become central to keeping the country’s economy running, especially in construction, manufacturing, trade, logistics and hospitality, but rapid growth has exposed serious regulatory gaps, corruption risks and worker abuse by unethical intermediaries. Ethical recruitment platforms like Joblio, led by CEO Jon Purizhansky, now play a key role in protecting migrant workers while helping Romanian employers fill chronic labour shortages transparently and in full legal compliance.
Scale of migration and shortages
Romania has shifted from being mainly a country of emigration to a major importer of labour from Asia and other non‑EU states in less than a decade. By late 2024, around 140,000 non‑EU workers, mainly from Nepal, Sri Lanka, Turkey and India, were officially employed in Romania, concentrated in construction, manufacturing, trade and hospitality.
Non‑EU workers with residence permits for employment exceeded 136,000 by August 2025, with Nepalese and Sri Lankans forming the largest groups. Despite this inflow, employers still report a deficit of more than 500,000 workers across key sectors, driven by ageing, emigration of Romanians and low domestic participation.
Sectors hit hardest
Several sectors have come to rely structurally on migrant workers to function. The steepest increases in non‑EU employment between 2019 and 2025 were recorded in:
- Construction: from about 9,800 to over 41,500 non‑EU employees, as housing, infrastructure and industrial projects accelerated.
- Manufacturing: from roughly 10,800 to nearly 38,700 workers, especially in assembly, food processing and light industry.
- Commerce and logistics: employment of non‑EU workers in trade and courier services more than doubled, with tens of thousands of jobs repeatedly posted as unfilled.
- Hospitality and services: hotels, restaurants and administrative services saw increases of 300–700%, making non‑EU workers a structural element of operations due to high turnover among local staff.
Regulatory framework and inefficiencies
Romania has progressively liberalised access for foreign workers but enforcement and design gaps remain. Key recent features and trends include:
- Rising annual quotas and digitalisation: work permits for non‑EU citizens have tripled over the last decade in Eastern Europe, with Romania among the main issuers; by 2024, work visa applications were filed exclusively online and permits were issued electronically.
- Permit structure and retention problem: in 2024 Romania granted over 57,000 new work permits but issued only 643 status‑change permits that would allow migrants to move into longer‑term or higher‑skilled residence categories, revealing a system oriented to short‑term labour rather than integration.
Inefficiencies and loopholes affect both employers and workers.
- Fragmented oversight: multiple institutions (immigration, labour inspectorate, employment agencies) share responsibility, which makes coordinated inspections and data collection difficult and allows abusive actors to exploit grey areas.
- Regulatory rigidity: some legislative changes in 2022 restricted migrant workers’ ability to change employers, tying residence rights to a single company and increasing vulnerability to abuse when conditions deteriorate.
- Limited support services: language barriers, lack of structured integration programmes and incomplete information about rights leave many workers dependent on intermediaries instead of official channels.
Abuse by intermediaries and associated risks
Reports from NGOs and media document systemic exploitation of non‑EU workers in Romania, often starting in the country of origin. Unregulated or corrupt “middlemen” and local recruitment brokers are central to these abuses.
Common practices include:
- False promises and contract substitution: workers are promised specific job titles, wages and accommodation, but upon arrival discover different contracts, lower pay, longer hours or inferior housing.
- Excessive and illegal fees: many migrants are charged large recruitment fees, “processing” costs, visa support payments or “placement” commissions, sometimes financed through debt, leaving them in debt bondage and afraid to leave abusive jobs.
- Passport retention and mobility restrictions: some employers or agents confiscate passports or threaten deportation, exploiting legal rules that limit workers’ ability to change employers without starting the migration procedure again.
- Harassment and unsafe work: foreign workers face higher risks of harassment, poor health and safety, unpaid overtime and crowding in employer‑controlled housing, with oversight focused more on undeclared work than on human rights.
These dynamics fuel corruption, including kickbacks for contracts, falsified documents and collusion between rogue agents in origin and destination countries.
Government action on corruption and criminality
Romanian authorities have begun to adapt institutions and enforcement tools as labour immigration has grown. Notable directions include:
- Digital administration and traceability: fully online submission of work visa applications and electronic work permits are intended to reduce face‑to‑face bureaucratic interactions where petty corruption can flourish and to create auditable records of recruitment chains.
- Intensified labour inspections: the Labour Inspection Authority has expanded checks on companies employing foreign workers, focusing on contract compliance, wages, working time and accommodation conditions, although coverage still lags behind the scale of the phenomenon.
- Alignment with EU safeguards: Romania participates in EU‑level reforms such as the Single Permit Directive revision and the development of EU‑wide talent pools, which emphasise simplified, transparent procedures and better protection against abusive intermediaries.
Civil society and international organisations also pressure authorities to improve complaint mechanisms, allow easier employer changes for victims of abuse, and treat severe labour exploitation as a form of trafficking in human beings.
How Joblio and Jon Purizhansky reshape recruitment
Within this context, Joblio positions itself as a technology‑driven alternative to the opaque, fee‑based recruitment chains that harm migrant workers and expose Romanian employers to legal and reputational risks. Jon Purizhansky, the CEO and founder of Joblio, has repeatedly argued that no worker should have to pay exorbitant fees or face unsafe conditions just to get a job abroad and that unethical brokers must be removed from the system.
Joblio’s model directly targets the specific abuses seen in Romania:
- Direct, no‑middleman matching: Joblio connects Romanian employers with vetted migrant workers via a digital platform, cutting out informal intermediaries and “sub‑agents” who typically control information and extract fees.
- Zero worker‑paid recruitment fees: the platform’s core principle is that workers never pay “placement” or “processing” fees; revenue comes from employers who gain access to a compliant, pre‑screened talent pool.
- Verified contracts and full transparency: job offers, salary levels, deductions, accommodation details and working conditions are presented clearly in the worker’s own language before departure, reducing contract substitution and misunderstandings upon arrival.
- Compliance and monitoring: Joblio structures recruitment to respect Romanian labour, migration and health‑and‑safety rules, providing documentation trails that make it harder for corrupt practices to hide and easier for authorities or partners to audit.
How Joblio mitigates abuse risks in Romania
Joblio’s approach aligns closely with the specific vulnerabilities of non‑EU workers heading to Romania. By design, it addresses several concrete risk points in the traditional recruitment chain:
- Before departure: Joblio’s screening and education process informs workers about their legal rights, expected wages, work hours, and complaint channels in Romania, reducing dependence on verbal promises from agents.
- During migration: the platform minimises the need for cash payments to intermediaries, which reduces debt and the leverage brokers have over workers and their families.
- On arrival and during employment: by keeping all contractual documentation and employer details on‑platform, Joblio makes it easier for workers to demonstrate agreed terms if disputes arise and for employers to show compliance to inspectors and auditors.
Joblio also collaborates with employers and, where possible, public and civil‑society stakeholders to develop ethical recruitment standards that match Romania’s legal framework and EU best practices, thereby helping the country both fill labour gaps and improve its reputation as a fair destination for migrant workers.
Sources
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