Remittances represent 28% of the incomes of families with children in rural areas, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The citizens who work abroad during the pandemic have sent home less money and a large part of them even stopped to send remittances as they also lost their sources of income. The issue was discussed in public debates organized by the Institute for European Policies and Reforms and the International Organization for Migration in cooperation with the Hanns Seidel Foundation in Moldova, IPN reports.

Anna Gherganova, head of the Employment Policy and Migration Regulation Division of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Social Protection, said the state has particular instruments for supporting the persons who remained without remittances, but they are not sufficient. The persons who remained without a job should go to the National Employment Agency and register as jobless so as to get unemployment benefit. When the pandemic started, the budget for paying unemployment benefit was trebled to about 100 million lei. There is also the social assistance program by which the minimum guaranteed income of families that remained without incomes was raised.

National Employment Agency director Raisa Dogaru noted that the persons who ask for unemployment benefit should have an insurance period. The persons who worked abroad and now returned home not always can confirm the insurance period. Some worked illegally and didn’t pay contributions into social insurance funds. In the first half of this year, there were persons who filed an application for unemployment benefit, but could not receive this because they didn’t have an insurance period.

Dorina Roșca, president of the European Institute for Development Studies of Paris, stated that some of the migrants returned home with particular savings. There are remittances that cannot be seen.