Most of them working underground.
The ‘Oltenia’ Lignite National Corporation (SNLO) will lay off 300 employees next year, most of them working underground, and will make redundant another 500 miners by 2012, Money Channel quotes company CEO Daniel Burlan as saying. “The restructuring program of the company implies 800 redundancies by 2012: 300 next year, 200 in 2011 and another 300 in 2012. Most of these people are working underground. For the 300 due to be laid off in 2010, we are waiting a Government Decision to be issued by March at latest,” Daniel Burlan said. According to the SNLO official, each of those to be made redundant will receive a fixed sum of RON 29,000. “Among those who will be fired may be, for instance, people aged 43, with 18 years of activity underground,” Daniel Burlan explained. Miners retire at the age of 45, if they worked at least 20 years underground. In 2009, SNLO already laid off 600 people, while the remaining personnel was sent into the so-called ‘technical redundancy’ (a leave paid with part of the salary) twice, as follows: During June 15-July 15, one thousand miners were on ‘technical redundancy’ and during August 15 – September 15 the same measure involved over 80 pc of the company personnel. SNLO currently has 9,000 employees.
In 2008, the company registered losses of RON 8-10 bln, as coal demand dwindled by one million tons, the company CEO announced in March.
Unemployment rate might reach 10 pc in 2010
Unemployment rate might reach an approximate 10 pc early next year, meaning that one million people will be jobless, Antena 3 quotes Mihai Seitan, state secretary in the Labor Ministry, as saying.
A few months ago, President Traian Basescu declared he won’t run for a new term in office if there will be one million jobless in Romania.
The International Monetary Fund recently increased its unemployment rate estimation for Romania from 8.9 pc to 9.6 pc this year. September’s unemployment rate stood at 6.9 pc and the number of jobless exceeded 620,000, almost 20,000 more than in August.
