The local labour market is the global hotspot this year in terms of labour shortages, after 73% of companies stated that they were unable to find any skilled personnel for the positions they offer.
Romania, which was included in the Manpower survey for the first time, is now faced with the most pessimistic situation in terms of personnel shortage, which is even more serious considering almost half of the companies on the domestic market (43%) intend to hire more people over the coming period.
"The shortage of skills needs to be correlated with the need for people. In terms of hiring plans we are number one in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region and number two in the world. When the need for more people increases, it becomes more difficult to find specialised people for the respective jobs," says Camelia Stanculescu, general manager of Manpower Romania.
Next in the ranking, ten percent behind, is Japan where 63% of employers say they are having trouble finding people, followed by Hong Kong - 61%, Singapore - 57% and Australia - 52%.
Almost one third of the employers in the world (31%) have trouble finding suitable candidates for their vacancies, but the good news is that this percentage is down almost 10% from last year. The most sought after employees on the domestic market are engineers, skilled workers and managers.
Engineers' salaries reached as much as over 1,000 euros a month over the last few years, and in certain fields, such as IT&C they may go up to as much as 2,500 euros. In terms of top management, a CEO of a multinational makes at least 10,000 euros per month.
As for skilled construction workers, they may earn up to 1,000 euros on Bucharest's construction sites. The shortage of personnel on the Romanian market has caused one of the highest increases in salaries in recent years, with the average growth on the entire market put at 25-30%.
"Salary raises will probably be in line with the performance and productivity of employees this year," Stanculescu says.
"We are at the beginning of the workforce deficit, at which time both the behaviour of employers and of employees changes. Yet such changes cannot happen really soon, especially since Romania comes after a time when we had workforce surplus," Stanculescu explains. The high personnel deficit on the domestic market can be explained by the fact that employers have been faced with the serious migration of workers over the last few years. Romania has been a real "nursery" of skills for companies abroad in various fields affected by shortages, and has provided engineers, workers and hospitality industry personnel for a long time, Stanescu explains.
Moreover, certain specialties have been dropped by the education system over the last few years and the young people's interest in engineering and crafts has waned.
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