One in seven fewer people in agriculture
In 2025, Romania’s agriculture, forestry and fishing employed 1,476,400 people, 253,400 fewer than in 2024, a fall of 14.6%. The figures are the national accounts Romania reports to Eurostat, updated on 13 October 2026; both years are provisional.
It is the steepest one-year fall since the series was last broken, in 2004. The next steepest were 11.0% in 2015 and 10.7% in 2016. Over ten years, from 2015, agricultural employment fell from 2,251,100 to 1,476,400.
The fall in agriculture accounts for 85% of the 298,200 drop in Romania’s total employment in 2025. Industry outside construction lost 71,400, and no sector added more than 25,700, the gain in public administration, education and health.
| Sector | 2024 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agriculture, forestry, fishing | 1,729,800 | 1,476,400 | -253,400 |
| Industry, except construction | 1,706,300 | 1,634,900 | -71,400 |
| Construction | 826,600 | 826,700 | +100 |
| Trade, transport, hospitality | 2,190,800 | 2,204,500 | +13,700 |
| Information and communication | 208,600 | 207,000 | -1,600 |
| Finance and insurance | 95,300 | 88,800 | -6,500 |
| Real estate | 39,300 | 45,700 | +6,400 |
| Professional and support services | 426,800 | 407,900 | -18,900 |
| Public administration, education, health | 1,200,800 | 1,226,500 | +25,700 |
| Arts and other services | 203,000 | 210,700 | +7,700 |
| Total employment | 8,627,300 | 8,329,100 | -298,200 |
Two ways of counting farm work
The labour force survey counts farm work more narrowly, and still finds a fall of 12.1%. It recorded 772,400 people working in agriculture in 2025, 106,700 fewer than in 2024.
Since 2021, the survey no longer counts people who farm only to feed their own household. The series is broken in 2021, the year that rule took effect: its farm figure went from 1,747,300 in 2020 to 902,900 in 2021, a break, not a collapse.
The two sources are different measures, so their levels are never compared, only the direction and the size of their changes. In 2025 they fell by 12.1% and by 14.6%.
- THE NATIONAL ACCOUNTS: everyone employed in production in Romania, on the broadest basis, by sector. They give the 1,476,400 and the fall of 253,400. The 2024 and 2025 figures are provisional.
- THE LABOUR FORCE SURVEY: a sample of households, people aged 15 to 74. Since 2021 it no longer counts people who farm only to feed their own household, so its farm figure is smaller and is compared only from 2021.
- THE SECTOR: agriculture here is NACE section A, agriculture, forestry and fishing, in both sources.
So 253,400 fewer people in agriculture is not 253,400 lay-offs: it is the net change in the number of people employed, and a second source counting on a narrower basis finds a fall of the same order, 12.1%.
Two sources, one sector and a provisional year, and a reading that forgets any of them says what the source does not.
What these figures do not say
They do not say why. Nothing here measures farm subsidies, the weather, land prices, emigration or the ageing of rural Romania, and no policy is assessed.
They do not say that farms closed or that anyone was laid off: they count people employed, net, from one year to the next. They do not say where those people went, or anything about pay.
They cover Romania as a whole, not any county or region. The 2024 and 2025 figures are provisional and may be revised, and none of this is a forecast.
