Labour Inspection says there are 4.6m private employees, Statistics Institute says 3.23m. Who should we believe?

The latest statistics on the number of employees comes from Labour Inspection Authority, which counted 4.6 million active employment contracts in the first nine months of the year based on data reported only by private employers. As of the same date, the National Statistics Institute (INS) counted only 3.23 million private sector employees.

Four institutions subordinated to the Government - the INS, the Finance Ministry, Labour Inspection and the Trade Registry - centralise data on the number of employees in Romania, both in the public sector and in the private sector, but each of them report different data. Who should we believe?
"The best statistics as far as the number of employees is concerned is the annual statistics put together by the INS (in October i.e.), not the monthly one. They use the Eurostat methodology and centralise data on salaried employees who actually worked, because there are also those who spent 90 days on medical leave and who continue to receive their salary," says Gheorghe Gherghina, secretary of state in the Finance Ministry.