Employee Benefits Trends in Romania
Employee benefit trends in Romania include digitalization, family and occupation and well-being. These topics, along with mandatory and supplementary employee benefits in Romania, were covered in a webinar this October given by Asinta’s employee benefits consultant in the country, MAI CEE.
Primary trends include:
- An increase in digital recruitment with on boarding also taking place fully online.
- There is also a significant increase in telemedicine which was almost nonexistent before the pandemic.
- Flexible working hours, also not common before COVID, are now more top of mind for employers and they are finding ways to make this happen to contribute to a healthy work life balance.
- Mental well-being is becoming increasingly important. Employees are asking for this support, however, there are not many solutions in Romania other than some help lines.
Other insights from the webinar include:
- Dependent coverage – This is quite prevalent for medical benefits and typically the employee pays for it. Some companies nonetheless will pay 50%, and high end (IT) employers will pay 100% of a dependent’s coverage.
- Taxation – Employee benefits in Romania are now counted as taxable income for the employee. To offset this, employers are adjusting employees’ annual gross incomes to compensate for the taxation.
- Government incentives to keep talent in Romania – Romania has lost about 5M people to western Europe for higher paying jobs. The government has not taken any action on this matter, but with elections coming up in December, there could be measures taken in the future to remedy this challenge. (see this article about related tax consequences)
This information about employee benefit trends in Romania is provided by MAI CEE, Asinta’s employee benefits consulting partner in the country.