De cativa ani de zile, citim din ce in ce mai des despre lipsa acuta de forta de munca din Romania. De pilda, intr-un articol recent din BIRN- Romania seeks to bring workers home, Romania anunta ca isi va intensifica eforturile de a-si tine muncitorii acasa ca raspuns la lipsa din titlu. "At the moment we have a labor force crisis and we should make a common effort to keep workers at home," o zas Tariceanu dupa ce s-o-ntalnit cu reprezentantii guvernului roman si ungar in Sibiu, in sudul Transilvaniei. Din pricina acestor lipsuri (care, dupa ministrul economiei Varujan Vosganian, sunt constate in principal in industria constructiilor, industria grea si cea constructoare de masini), un lucrator in constructii castiga mai mult in Romania decat in strainatate.
Romania ar avea nevoie de inca 500,000 de lucratori dar 2 milioane de romani lucreaza in strainatate. Somajul a cazut de la 7% in 2003 la 5.2% sa sfarsitul lui 2006 si este aproape de 4% azi, conform datelor publicate de Banca Europeana pentru Reconstructie si Dezvoltare (EBRD). Inflatia salariilor (cum economistii numesc explozia/creterea rapida a salariilor) a fost mai pronuntata in sectoarele cu mana de lucru necalificata, unde este mai usor sa gasesti de lucru afara.

"In Romania, you see much quicker wage growth in the non-skilled sectors like hotels, restaurants and construction." spune Clemens Grafe - Europe, Middle East & Africa economist at UBS.

In Mr Grafe's view, wage convergence may remove the economic pressure that is driving migration flows sooner than many expect. He said: "We believe that the speed with which labour costs change will change completely. Migration is driving wage movements. In countries that have seen major migration, wage increases have speeded up dramatically."
Historically, eastern Europe's wage levels had grown relatively slowly. "In countries like Poland, we expect 12 or 13 per cent wage increases. It used to be 2 to 3 per cent [before large-scale migration]."

THE Oxford Belfry is a typical modern British hotel: big, bland and strikingly lacking in native staff. Among the multinational workforce, the cheerful, omnipresent Poles stand out: at the front desk, in the bars and restaurants, cleaning and (while reading an economics textbook) supervising the gym and pool.
“It's the work ethic. Many British people think the service industries are about servitude,” complains John Cotter, a senior manager. Since Poland joined the European Union last year, his staffing headaches have largely been over. “We are inundated with applications from Poland,” he says. Indeed, the new reservoir of good, cheap labour is a boon for many employers in Britain, Ireland and Sweden, the only old EU countries that have fully opened their doors to workers from the new members. But now some central European countries, especially Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, are worried that too many of their best people are leaving for higher pay and a better life.

the era of migration is likely to be temporary. “We have ten years before the demographics kick in,” says Mr Mansoor, “after which there just won't be the young people to emigrate.” That is not wholly good news: most central and east European countries face the nasty combination of a rich-country age structure with a poor-country economy. But it highlights the biggest cause of migration now: a big pool of unemployed, underpaid or under-appreciated people for whom going abroad makes a lot of sense.

For money isn't everything. Mantas Adomenas, a star Lithuanian classical scholar, studied at Oxford and Cambridge in the 1990s, writing a doctorate on “Plato's reception of the pre-Socratic philosophers”. But after eight years as a Cambridge don, he went home, taking a 75% pay cut to teach at Vilnius University and campaign against corruption. His friends, he says, chide him as a big fish in a small pond. He responds by quoting Plutarch, who 20 centuries ago refused to join the brain drain to Athens “lest my small city should become even smaller.”