European Structural Funds and human resource productivity

Following the accession to the European Union, Romania and the other former communist countries are facing multiple problems in their attempt to reduce the economic and social disparities between them and the older members of the EU. In order to support the efforts of the young members in alignment process with the Community norms and standards, the EU, through the Regional Development Policy, gives these countries structural and cohesion funds.In the present article we intend to analyze the impact that these structural funds have on the efficiency with which the human resource is used in the beneficiary companies. The analysis is performed at the level of the North-East Region of Romania on the financial statements of the companies benefiting from structural funds during the multi-annual exercise 2007-2013.In the analyzes made on the basis of the financial statements of the companies receiving non-reimbursable financial aid, we find that there are statistically representative changes regarding the increase in the average number of employees, but we could not identify any noticeable effect on the average labor productivity.