The Romanian government does not know exactly how many people it pays

Currently, Romania does not have a single, extensive database that accurately reflects how many people are employed in public institutions. This conclusion follows from a detailed report on central and local public administration, which relies on official data from the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Labor, the Labor Inspectorate, and the National Agency for Public Servants.

As of the end of April 2025, the Ministry of Finance reported 1,511,900 approved positions in public institutions, of which 1,287,381 were filled, and 1,255,381 were classified as paid positions. Likewise, data on insured individuals indicated 1,182,190 contractual relationships in public institutions, but after removing duplicates, only 1,102,010 unique individuals were identified.

Discrepancies arise because different state institutions measure varying aspects of employment. The Ministry of Finance reports on approved, filled, and paid positions, while the Labor Inspectorate tracks individual employment contracts through REVISAL, excluding civil servants, public officials, or personnel in specific sectors. Meanwhile, the National Agency for Civil Servants only monitors civil servants.

According to the Labor Inspectorate, there were 1,182,670 individual employment contracts, and 948,848 employees with these contracts in public institutions. Separately, the National Agency for Civil Servants reported 130,455 positions held by civil servants, in addition to temporarily filled, vacant, or temporarily vacant positions.

The report emphasizes that these figures cannot simply be added together to create a complete picture of the public sector. Some data refer to individuals, others to positions, and still others to contracts. Additionally, term contracts and elected officials are not clearly centralized in a dedicated database.

The authors of the report conclude that the lack of a unified record-keeping system hinders the state’s ability to make informed decisions regarding the size of the administrative apparatus. In other words, before determining how many positions need to be cut, merged, or reorganized, the state faces a fundamental problem: it cannot accurately ascertain how many people it employs or under what contractual arrangements.