"This study approaches in a contextual manner the question of employment in Romania, emphasising: the upshots of the transition from communism to capitalism; the phenomenon of migration; integration into the European Union; and the aging of the population. Meanwhile, the current economic crisis has led to a decline in the number of employed people and in their salaries. The author's intention has been for this approach to facilitate the creation of a nuanced image of employment in Romania through a time-dependent (past-present-future) and geopolitical (Romania as a part of the European Union) analysis. The reaction of the Romanian government to the crisis has been to develop right-wing policies in the name of austerity: employees now enjoy fewer rights while the language around flexibilisation offers them fewer opportunities than it does capital owners as a result of the imbalance between supply and demand on the labour market. The outcome has been an unfortunate reduction in what Gøsta Esping-Andersen named the ‘decommodification' of the workforce. "

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