Moldova’s labour market needs to be liberalised to make it attractive for employees

The Ministry of Economic Development and Digitisation has set up a special working group for the stimulation of the labour market, whose secretariat is provided by the Secretariat of the Economic Council under the Prime Minister of Moldova.

The first meeting discussed attracting job seekers to the labour market – there are officially more than 100,000 unemployed people registered in Moldova; students, including those with a temporary residence permit for studies – there are currently about 5,400 in Moldova. But, say representatives of the business community, national legislation needs to be adapted to the new realities. Restrictions and ceilings currently applied to foreigners in the process of obtaining temporary residence rights need to be removed.

The need to identify solutions to ensure access to the Moldovan labour market for refugees was also discussed. At the moment there are about 100,000 thousand Ukrainian refugees in the country.

An opportunity to liberalise the labour market in Moldova is also the regulation of temporary agency work – work performed by a temporary employee who has concluded an individual contract with a temporary employment agent and is placed at the disposal of the applicant to work temporarily under the supervision and direction of the latter.

The members of the Working Group, representatives of the business community and state institutions, are to analyse the regulatory framework and statistical data on the labour market in Moldova, the reasons for the labour shortage, the impediments to eliminating this shortage, and to come up with recommendations for amending the regulatory framework in this regard.

The Secretariat of the Economic Council to the Prime Minister is supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, funded by the UK Government’s Good Governance Fund, and the International Finance Corporation’s Investment Climate Reform Project funded by the Government of Sweden’s International Development Agency.

The Secretariat of the Economic Council to the Prime Minister is supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, funded by the UK Government’s Good Governance Fund.