Romania's unemployment rate fell to a 15-year low in May as farms, construction companies, hotels and tourist resorts boosted hiring before their peak seasons, reported Bloomberg.

Unemployment fell to 4.1 percent in May from 4.5 percent in April, the National Labor Agency said on its Web site today. That's the lowest since May 1992 before the government started to close labor-intensive communist-era coal mines and factories.

Economic growth and increased foreign investment as Romania joined the European Union on Jan. 1 have helped lower unemployment from a peak of 13.5 percent in 2002. Construction companies have led the hiring boom in the past year as building jumped.

Foreign companies including Microsoft Corp., Nokia Oyj, IKEA, Starbucks Corp., Metro AG, Auchan SA and others are hiring workers in Romania this year as they enter the country or expand existing operations to take advantage of lower wages and EU entry.

The number of unemployed in the Balkan nation of 22 million fell by 31,000 last month to about 370,000, the labor agency said. Unemployment was lowest, at 1.6 percent, in the county of Timis on Romania's western border and highest, at 9 percent, in the southern county of Mehedinti.