Abstract. The background of financial and economic global crisis that affects the Romanian economy and society this year leads to new questions regarding the way the funds allocated to Romania through structural instruments support the process of reconversion/reinsertion/ reintegration on the labour market of persons affected by this recessive trend. The slogan of Lisbon Strategy itself on “knowledge based society” determines us to tackle on the problem of the efficient use of structural and cohesion funds allocated to Romania for the programming period 2007-2013, in an equation cost-benefit with positive results for all the social levels. In this way, the expectancies related to the profitable effect of the infusion of Community funds in the human resources development sector should take into consideration the fact that the results will not appear “sine die” as a linear result of the financial forecasts, being necessary to structure, boost and strengthen the whole process specific for the technical and financial management up to the project level. Knowing the genesis of structural instruments in the united Europe after the Second World War gives an important scientific landmark taking into consideration that the current crisis is the most serious phenomenon of recession in the last 60 years in the world. Measures that proved the efficiency in the past decades in some Member States are also valuable elements for positioning Romania in implementing SOPHRD and ensure the premises for perspective guidelines in running future actions in this area. The analyse of the results registered in the first 18 months from the implementation of SOPHRD in Romania offers the informational support for the fundamental of accelerated support measures for the absorption process of Community funds with a view to overcome the crisis we are dealing with. The analyse of labour market and occupational crisis in Romania with a view to identify some possible solutions for overcoming it may be done only in the context of analyzing the situation to the European level and in close connection with the process of the integration of our country in the European Union.

Keywords: European funds; SOPHRD implementation; occupational crisis.