by Diana M.

Romania has finally discovered efficiency. Not in infrastructure. Not in education. Not in healthcare. But in elimination. An elegant, technological, “neutral” elimination, powered by algorithms, KPIs, and motivational speeches about “the future.” Its real name? Institutionalized ageism. (Definition: Ageism is the professional removal of competent people over 40, repainted as “efficiency” and “modernization” so that no one notices it’s simply discrimination.)

If in Western Europe ageism is packaged in the cold language of “market adaptation,” in Romania it is practiced bluntly, provincially, and with deep hypocrisy. There is endless talk about digitalization, AI, meritocracy, and global competitiveness, while people with 20 or 30 years of experience are quietly pushed out, like worn-out components that no longer “fit” the new strategic PowerPoint. Young consultants are paid to learn from costly mistakes, while the very specialists who could have prevented those failures are rejected. The cost? Billions of euros in failed projects and missed opportunities. Europe has forgotten the lessons of its own history, because it fired the people who actually lived it.

In recent months, public and private institutions alike have carried out, or are preparing, mass layoffs. “Costs” are being cut. “Structures” are being optimized. What is never addressed is the essential question: what happens to the people forced out of the system? Romania has no real professional reintegration policies for those over 40–45. No serious reskilling pipelines. No genuinely open labor market. It has only a functional cynicism: “You’ll figure it out.”

And here emerges the key observation, one nobody wants to hear: this is the great fraud of the moment. Under the pretext of modernization, Romania is carrying out the largest professional purge of the past decades, without public debate, without compensatory policies, and without political accountability.

Ageism in Romania is not a cultural accident, nor a temporary labor-market deviation. It is a functional mechanism embedded in how the state, corporations, and informal power networks manage human capital. Under the mask of modernization, digital transformation, and “European alignment,” Romania is practicing a sophisticated form of professional cleansing with severe systemic effects. While public discourse speaks of a “skills shortage,” what we are actually witnessing is a surplus of undesirable competence: people who know too much, have seen too much, and can no longer be disciplined with empty promises.

Connections stay. Competence leaves.

Ironically, or perhaps perfectly logically for Romania, even in this critical moment, the “party protégés,” relatives, political clients, and well-connected insiders remain untouched within public institutions. Not because they are competent. But because they are untouchable. Those who leave are precisely the ones who understand how the institution actually works, can say when something is wrong, and refuse ideological obedience or office opportunism. They lack backing. They lack both the stomach and the moral flexibility to become protégés. The result? Institutions that will survive formally, but enter a dual bankruptcy: moral and financial. When competence is systematically purged, collapse is no longer a hypothesis, it is only a matter of time.

The AI lie and the rigged labor market.

The cherry on top comes from HR and IT, where hypocrisy reaches almost artistic levels. Industry professionals confirm, off the record, what many suspected: CV-screening algorithms configured with a maximum acceptance age of 37. Thirty-seven. Platforms like LinkedIn, Job.ro, and other recruitment ecosystems publicly sell narratives about diversity, inclusion, and equal opportunity. In reality, they function as glossy interfaces for a brutal, opaque, deeply discriminatory selection process. It is all smoke in the eyes of applicants who apply full of hope, with impeccable résumés, international certifications, and solid experience. They are not rejected for lack of competence. They are rejected because they have existed for too long.

A society preparing its own radicalization.

In a Romanian society already burdened with historical frustrations, chronic injustices, and institutional contempt, this systematic elimination of a broad segment of the active population is pure fuel for radicalization. What will the prime minister do with tens of thousands of people who will no longer have jobs? What real alternatives are being offered to them? What future is being proposed? The real answer is: none.

These people will not disappear. They will migrate, if not physically, then politically. Deprived of rational options, representation, and hope, the extremes become the only form of symbolic revenge. Europe already sees this phenomenon. Romania ignores it with suicidal calm.

Cosmetic lies and slogans.

Romania, like much of Europe, no longer produces solutions. It produces cosmetized narratives. Campaigns. Slogans. PowerPoint decks delivered by well-paid preferred vendors hired to lie elegantly and lull public vigilance. The problem is that people no longer believe. They don’t believe in photos of smiling young professionals. They don’t believe in “future-proof” slogans. They don’t believe in empty promises. When reality pushes you out of the system at 45, no banner reading “We value experience” impresses you anymore.

Find a solution, and stop the lie.

Europe is fracturing under the weight of its own contradictions. Romania walks blindly down the same road. Ageism is not just a social issue. It is a political time bomb. An economic act of sabotage. A form of structural violence disguised as modernization. If there is no real will to integrate, respect, and leverage mature expertise, then at least stop the lie. A society can survive truth, even harsh truth. It does not survive hypocrisy for long. The question is no longer whether Romania will pay this price, but when.

#HR #Ageism #TooOld