Retail dominates Romanian job market in 2024 amid shifting recruitment trends

The retail industry emerged as the top employer in Romania in 2024, a year marked by cautious labor market activity. Employers posted nearly 300,000 new job opportunities, while job seekers remained highly active, submitting approximately 11 million applications, according to eJobs Romania’s Review & Trends annual report.

Of the total jobs posted, 87.9% were based in Romania, 4.2% targeted positions abroad, and 7.9% offered remote work. The cities with the highest job postings were Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iași, Brașov, Ilfov, Timișoara, Craiova, Constanța, Ploiești, and Bacău.

The fields generating the most jobs were retail, services, and the food industry, maintaining the same hierarchy as in 2023.

May was the peak month, with over 25,000 job postings, but contrary to expectations, the summer months saw a similar level of recruitment activity, slightly below the numbers recorded in October. This signals a shift in hiring patterns.

“The assumption that job numbers would drop during the summer proved to be incorrect. Recruitment activity during summer matched that of spring and only slightly trailed October. This confirms a trend we’ve observed for some time: the disappearance of seasonality in recruitment,” said Bogdan Badea, CEO of eJobs Romania.

With retail dominating the job market and recruitment activity showing resilience throughout the year, 2024 highlighted a steady demand for labor across key industries, driven by evolving hiring dynamics.