The Effects Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On The External Migration Of The Romanian Population

The pandemic and its consequences have affected the lives of people all over the world. But migrants were much more affected than any other population groups. The pandemic has, in the first phase, drastically reduced migration in all OECD countries, a phenomenon noted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, although migrants would have managed to ensure the functioning of some sectors strongly affected by the pandemic, such as the health, commercial and logistic, even during the restrictions period. In the midst of the pandemic, governments took exceptional measures, which limited the mobility of people and in this case, the mobility of migrants. The OECD believes that migrants have been particularly affected by the coronavirus pandemic, and as far as migration is concerned, it has been considerably reduced, an unfavorable phenomenon for both parties: both for the countries providing migration and for those receiving migration. Many of the migrants work in gastronomy, in hotels, in tourism - so exactly in the industries that were most affected by the pandemic. In the so-called HORECA sector in the EU, about a quarter of the employees come from third countries, twice more than in the rest of the economic sectors. The work contracts in the field are often very short-term. As such, the migrants were the first to be sent into unemployment. The paper aims to present an analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on international migration from Romania starting from the analysis of the phenomenon from the pre-pandemic period, then extending the analysis of this phenomenon for the period 2020-2021.