What does a non-shifting Beveridge curve tell about Romania’s labour market?

ABSTRACT

Unlike for many developed and developing countries, for Romania, the Beveridge curve has not shifted during the current economic cycle. Our analysis reveals a labour market in transition towards a service-based, knowledge-intensive economy, where inward shifts of occupational Beveridge curves observed for Professionals, and Service and Sales workers, reflecting an increased matching efficiency for these occupations, were offset by outward shifts experienced by Technicians and Elementary occupations workers, leading to an aggregate non-shifting Beveridge curve for Romania. The flat Beveridge curves for the total labour market, and for most occupations, observed since 2016, could precede a future inward shift of the former, indicating an increased matching efficiency similar to the ones observed for Hong Kong in the 80s, and for Germany after the Great Recession. Results could inform future developments of the Romanian labour market, against a background of existing and potential future labour shortages.

KEYWORDS:

• Beveridge curve
• labour market mismatches
• unemployment
• labour shortages
• vacancies

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• J62
• J63
• E24
• E32

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.