Work, but at what price?

"How far are you willing to go for a job?" asks Gândul. The daily tells the story of a young mother of two and programmer at the Romanian branch of a British company who’s been in a coma ever since she literally collapsed at the computer on 9 March. In April 2007, an employee at Ernst & Young in Bucharest also died, a victim to karoshi or death by overwork, which was first identified in Japan in 1969. The Romanian press now wonders whether foreign multinationals based in the country aren’t overtaxing their staff. But employees who spoke to Gândul say they’re willing “to work as much as they have to for €1,500 a month”. More than half the population has to work overtime to keep their jobs, the paper adds.