Apprenticeship subvention

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Law no. 279/2005 on apprenticeship and Law no. 76/2002 on unemployment insurances

To encourage employers to provide apprenticeship places in order to raise employability of young graduates without a qualification or without practice

National Agency for Employment is responsible for the overall management, monitoring and evaluation of the instrument as well as day-to-day operation.

All companies (a contract with National Employment Agency is required)

The instrument supports only apprenticeship. It applies to EQF 2-4 levels.

State

The amount of the grant: ROL 300 per month per apprentice (recent modification of the instrument aims at raising the amount to ROL 1,125 (approx. EUR 250)).

Funds are disbursed to all eligible applicants on the basis of the legal entitlement.

Apprentice remuneration (wage)

In 2016 and 2015, the public funding amounted to EUR 136,000 and 106,000 respectively (the actual amount is not available; estimation is based on the number of apprentices without considering drop-outs).
No EU funds involved in 2016 and 2015.

There is no official data on the number of beneficiary companies.
Based on the actual number of apprentices and considering that most companies train several apprentices, it is estimated by the national expert that approx. 50 companies benefited from the grant.

2016 Report of the National Agency for Employment: http://www.anofm.ro/files/RAPORT%20DE%20ACTIVITATE%202016.pdf

The grant has been considered not to provide sufficient incentive to encourage employers to train apprentices as the amount of grant has been too low. While the minimum wage was raised from ROL 1,050 in January 2015 to ROL 1,450 in February 2017, the grant remained unchanged (ROL 300). In addition, the related bureaucracy is heavy and specific obligations (such as to maintain the apprentice until the end of the training no matter if they show interest or not; to pay back the grants if the apprentice does not obtain the qualification at the second attempt to take the final examination) are not encouraging. Moreover, compulsory duration is too long: a similar qualification can be obtained 4 times faster with an accredited training provider. This is why the recent modification of the grant (see 'Recent or planned changes') is welcome, the grant may completely cover the wage of the apprentice, while the employer has only to cover the social insurances contributions.

At the time of this research, a recent modification of the grant (approved by the Parliament and sent for promulgation to the President) was to enter into force shortly. The amount of the grant was raised significantly: up to ROL 1,125 approx. (EUR 250) covering almost fully the wage of an apprentice.

National Agency for Employment, www.anofm.ro

2016 Report of the National Agency for Employment:
http://www.anofm.ro/files/RAPORT%20DE%20ACTIVITATE%202016.pdf