Minister of Labor and Social Protection Marcel Spatari said the phenomenon of migration witnessed by Moldova is not something new. It is a tendency of the past 20 years. The official said that even if the citizens of the Republic of Moldova left the country, their presence is felt through the constant amounts they send home and that contribute to the functionality of this state. To stop migration from Moldova, the state should become attractive to the young generation, IPN reports.
According to the study “Tendencies and Perspectives” that was recently launched by the Institute for Development and Social Initiative “Viitorul”, for the first time in 2022 the young population (18-35 years) that enters the active life will be smaller than the older population (above 60) that leaves the active economic life. Minister Marcel Spatari said this is due to the fact that Moldova is not attractive to the youth.
“The young people look for comfort and for public services of a high quality. We must accept that migration is a tendency and we must implement policies to improve the living conditions in the country and to focus on the people who are in the country, not to place barriers on the border to prevent the people from leaving. It is not a signal of alarm of the past two years. It is a general tendency of the past 20 years. We must offer the people confidence that they have a future in this country and should not propagate messages that Moldova is close to disappearance. It is not disappearing. We have people who work and give birth to children,” Marcel Spatari stated in the talk show “Sahdow Cabinet” on JurnalTV channel.
The study of “Viitorul” shows that the number of young people in Moldova during the past 12 years declined by 300,000, from 872,000 in 2010 to 571,000 in 2022. The minister said the young people choose to look for development opportunities in other states. However, most of the citizens who left continue to contribute to the development of the country.
“We have the largest remittances in the economy in Europe. We thus cannot say that the people left the country. They physically are in another country, but they help this country. There is European competition on the home market and this is a normal phenomenon, but we should create mechanisms to protect the labor market. For example, in the building sector, work is seasonal. Many of the employees of the building sector are temporary employees or are not at all employed and are paid unofficially. In the Republic of Moldova, we do not have mechanisms to pay benefits in winter for the people to be able to cover the costs. Romania has such a mechanism and it is called the Builders’ Social House,” stated Marcel Spatari.
The “Viitorul” study also shows that the number of older persons in Moldova increased from 460,000 in 2010 to 602,000 in 2022.
