The automotive industry alone needs approximately 15,000 engineers a year, which is double the number delivered by technical faculties in the country. "I estimate 14,000 or 15,000 engineers a year could meet the demands of the industry over the coming years," says Constantin Stroe vice-president of Automobile Dacia.
Romanian construction sites estimate they are short of approximately 50,000 employees.
"Out of this number, about 15% are engineers," says Laurentiu Plosceanu, chairman of the Romanian Association of Construction Contractors (ARACO).
Good engineering graduates can get a job in the constructions sector for at least 700-800 euros per month, but many of them are not trained to do what the market is looking for. "Graduates who leave university today can be good design engineers at best, but the market requires other specialties, such as project managers. The best will always find work and high salaries," Plosceanu feels.
The monthly net income of an engineer with a three or four-year experience ranges between 1,000 and 2,000 euros, while a junior engineering graduate earns 400-500 euros.
Although rapidly increasing in recent years, the salaries of the Romanian engineers are still nowhere near to those offered in Germany and France, where a Romanian engineer, with a few years' experience, can earn 3,000 to 5,000 euros per month.
"The salaries of engineers in the West are double if not higher than those of Romanians, this is why specialists continue to go and work abroad," says Larisa Condriuc, consultant of recruitment company Manpower Professional.
Highest-paid on the domestic market are the IT&C engineers who can earn up to 2,500-3,000 euros in net amount per month in the major software companies.
Bogdan Constantinescu, CEO of Cisco Romania, the local branch of the world's largest network equipment manufacturer, estimates the shortage of IT&C skills at 9,000 people. "Whereas 10 years ago, six out of ten graduates were ready to work the first day after being hired, now this percentage has gone down.
Only two out of ten college graduates are ready to start working right away," Constantinescu says.
Back in the nineties, there were about 320,000 engineers in Romania, but the number has dwindled over the last twenty years, particularly because of the migration abroad and the fact that the economy after December 1989 did neither capitalise on, nor financially reward technical university graduates.
First of all, not all of the 8,000 graduates leaving college every year are suitable for hiring.
The advantage of the engineers and the disadvantage of the employers that need them is that if you graduate from a technical university, you can do almost anything afterwards, but the reverse is not possible.
"One third of the engineering graduates go to work abroad and many of them leave the system and pursue other professions or start their own business," explains Mihai Mihaita, chairman of the General Association of Romanian Engineers (AGIR).
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