Will Romania lose foreign workers to Spain?

Cojocariu Eugen, 09.02.2026, 18:12

Romania risks losing the foreign workforce already present in the country to countries like Spain, that are drafting legal measures to the benefit of hundreds of thousands of workers, whereas the Romanian legislation remains rigid and discouraging, the Employers’ Federation of Labor Force Importers warns. According to the same source, while Spain announces legal measures benefitting more than 500,000 foreign workers, offering stability and clear integration prospects, Romania continues to pursue a rigid and coercive strategy. Romania is repeating the same flawed pattern: instead of attracting and retaining resources, it takes measures which end up losing these resources. The Romanian state believes that everything can be solved with fines and constraints, in a rapidly changing economy. We are being penalized because workers are leaving for the West, in the context in which bringing them to Romania is extremely bureaucratic, takes a long time, and if they end up illegally, often due to ignorance of immigration procedures, there is no form of amnesty for them. There is only repatriation, says the employers’ federation.

Meanwhile, Spain grants amnesty to 500,000 people. We said as early as the spring of 2025 that Romania should offer amnesty to foreigners willing to work but who stay illegally in the country. The Romanian authorities have done nothing and deny the existence of these situations. Spain has not wasted time, says the president of the Employers’ Federation of Labor Force Importers, Romulus Badea. The authorities choose to blame recruiters for the departure of foreign workers from Romania and refuse to see the European reality, the aforementioned source points out.

Spain, Italy and Portugal have adopted amnesty policies for tens of thousands of workers, offering them a guarantee of entering legality. In this context, the sanctions applied in Romania only drive the workforce towards states that accept and protect this workforce. Under these conditions, foreign workers are no longer deterred by the risk of illegality, because they know that other states will provide them with documents, the employers’ federations adds.

According to the same source, as long as Romania responds only with threats and restrictions, any effort by recruitment agencies is worthless, and the workforce goes where it is wanted and protected. Consequently, Romania loses a resource that it already has on its territory because it refuses to bring it into legality. Those who have become illegal workers for strictly bureaucratic reasons stand no chance of re-entering legality here, but they can go, with no problem, to Spain to get their documents and work there, for example. As long as Romania refuses an amnesty law and does not pursue its economic interest, it will continue to lose people, money and competitiveness, while other European states gain exactly from what we are expelling, Badea has added.

Furthermore, the new regulations in the field of labor migration, in their current form, risk blocking over 70,000 already submitted work permit applications, with appointments set by April 30, 2026. The budgetary impact is significant, according to the aforementioned source. In concrete terms, for each month of delay in bringing these workers, the Romanian state loses approximately 130 million lei (about 26 million Euros).

The Romanian state has failed to keep Romanian workers in the country, it has no project to bring them back and it is also failing to attract and retain foreign workers, believes the Employers’ Federation of Labor Force Importers.