They left for Spain several years ago, for much higher incomes than the ones they could earn in Romania and they sent more than 2bn euros home last year. Romanians working in Spain have been on the brink of recession for several months, together with the Spanish economy, and yet many of them do not seem willing to come back home.
Daniela Hulea is in Reus, a city in the Tarragona province, where she started working for various restaurants. Now, she only thinks of Romania as the country where she goes each year to spend winter holidays. The trust she gained helped her recommend other Romanians to the restaurant manager. In the cities around Barcelona, there is no restaurant or bar without at least one Romanian working there.
Eva Crisan is a cook in a restaurant of Gratallops, a village of Priorat, and she sends the money she earns to Romania every month. "It's much better here, but we only want to stay for five years, until we pay back the loan for the car," says Crisan, who does not want to give up the idea the Romanian economy will grow and her family will go back to work at home.
However, very few Romanians are coming back. In agriculture, though wages are not very high, Romanians accept to work lured by the incentives offered by employers. "Incentives include free accommodation and possibly a meal per day," says Cristina Tanasescu, an area manager of Dagecom Travel Services.
"This year, the number of Romanians we sent to Spain was lower than last year (...)," she says, mentioning agriculture is still a field where foreign workers can still contract employers.
In Spain, the new economic context has hurt the constructions field the hardest, with many Romanians returning home after they lost their jobs. Builders say that in 2009 the number of contracts will be significantly lower than in previous year and this means massive layoffs.
Related fields are undergoing restructuring processes meant to dramatically slash workforce costs.
Nevertheless, Romanians working in a Spanish company are not seriously considering coming back home.
The number of Romanians working in Spain in early 2008 stood at over 700,000, up 200,000 from 2007, with their number overshooting that of any other foreigners in this country, according to Spain's National Statistics Institute.
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