Ilie Bolojan: "At least 13,000 civil servants must be laid off”

The state budget no longer allows for the support of an oversized administration, and to ensure budgetary stability, at least 13,000 employees from the central, county and local public administration must be laid off, declared Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, during the press conference he held yesterday at the Victoria Palace. Ilie Bolojan said: "The second package of measures, consisting of five laws, was to be completed by the sixth - the reform of local administration. But because we did not have the agreement of all the parties in the coalition, it was not submitted. This package is complementary to the fiscal package, because without it we do not reduce an important component of expenses that the state can no longer bear in the coming years. The local administration area is a large block of expenses that brings together over 150,000 people. Controlling personnel expenses is an important stake, because if we do not control unnecessary expenses, we risk returning next year to the situation of this year".

The Head of Government pointed out that, according to official data, in the first six months of 2025, personnel expenses increased by 10% compared to the same period last year, although the budget provided for a 5% decrease, not even the vacant positions being abolished. Moreover, although the legislation allowed for a public administration with 190,000 employees, and the organizational charts of public institutions provide for 164,000 positions, in reality only 129,000 of these are occupied.

Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan stated: "When you reduce the maximum number of approved positions by 25%, it means that you are not making any cuts. Only vacant positions are being abolished. I cannot afford to come to the citizens with such solutions. For a real reduction of 5%, a 30% cut in the maximum number of approved positions would be needed, which would mean layoffs in almost a thousand localities. For a 10% reduction - approximately 13,000 people would have to leave the system. A 15% reduction would mean that 60% of city halls would make cuts. I personally know that these things work, because I have done them. If you look at Oradea and Bihor County, I have shown that it is possible."

He criticized the statements of some PSD leaders who want to postpone the decision to drastically reform the public administration and said: "We cannot afford to misinform Romanians any longer. The Ministry of Development will come this week with all the data from the field. You will have a link to all these public calculations and you will see the number of positions for each county and locality, the simulations of staff reductions and you will see who needs to make cuts and who is right and who should not. It will be a first mirror of the administration in Romania".

According to the prime minister, package 2 of measures is not complete without the administration reform and it is not normal for the state to increase taxes and fees paid by citizens to throw them into a black hole created by the unjustified expenses of the public administration.