Cutting The Personnel Expenditure In The Romanian Public Sector – Causes And Effects

The global economic crisis, which had a strong impact on virtually all states of the world, brought additional challenges to the public sector. The governments had to choose between two alternatives: to decrease public expenditure by adopting austerity measures (option chosen by most EU Member States) or to increase public investments, in an attempt to stimulate economic growth (alternative preferred and supported by the USA and Great Britain). The paper aims to analyze the public expenditure policy in Romania, as a result of the economic conditions imposed by the crisis, with a focus on the public expenditure with the personnel employed within public institutions. The paper will analyze and compare the figures regarding public expenditure for the wages of persons working in the public sector in the years prior to the crisis and following the adoption of the austerity measures. The goal of the paper is to identify the possible connection between the reduction of personnel expenses and the decrease of the budgetary deficit, which was the intended purpose of the austerity measures in the field of public employees’ salaries.