Are Census Socioeconomic Variables a Consistent Tool for Analyzing Human Resources Sustainability on Romania’s Labor Market?

Censuses ensure obtaining important data on some indicators of the labor market, as they observe the entire population of the national territory, in its smallest subdivisions. Multiple difficulties regarding the harmonization of census data provided by the EU member states emerged at the level of the European Union. However, solutions have gradually been identified and implemented for ensuring data comparability between countries. Among the EU states, there has been a growing tendency to move from the traditional organization of census to an approach based totally or partially (for the time being) on administrative sources. Using a combined census (survey data combined with administrative registers) is considered as a tool for statistical information consolidation. Another interesting trend, which arose in the context of the expansion of ICT technologies, was the digitalization of the census data collection system, considered as a factor with an impact on the respondents’ compliance degree. Best practices regarding online self-enumeration in the EU countries were analyzed. For Romania, the main characteristics of self-enumeration were highlighted, along with the changes made in Romania’s census questionnaire, with a focus on labor market indicators.