Working Romania: We need 250,000 workers to cover the needs of the private sector

Romania needs up to 250,000 new employees from abroad, mainly from South-East Asia, to cover the workforce needs in the blue-collar area. As the young people of Generation Z are rather reluctant to engage, especially in the technical sectors, we need people to cover the labor force requirement. But the bureaucracy still remains difficult, and the recruitment processes are hard to achieve. The guests from the first panel of the event, organized by Business Review, Working Romania #futureofwork, now in its tenth edition, discussed what solutions we have for these problems.

”The statistics made by state institutions and the requirements of private companies are different in terms of the number of employees from abroad required, but it is obvious that we still need the workforce, both in Romania and in the European Union,” stated Cristian Vasilcoiu, State Secretary in the Ministry of Labour and Social Solidarity.

„Frequently, Romanian employers declare to AJOFM annually that they would need a total of about 70,000 people. On the other hand, talking to those in the private sector, we find out that 200,000 and even 250,000 employees can easily integrate. The law requires employers to declare to AJOFM how many people they need, but many no longer declare because they think that nothing happens anyway. And they also declare when they want to bring in labor from outside because they need the approval of the AJOFM.

The labor market all over the world is constantly changing, and these changes will accelerate in the context in which we have this European transition plan towards green energy and digitization, which lead to the emergence of new demands on the labor market. Technology will take over part of the jobs and it is good that it will make people’s work easier, and they will be able to choose better-paid jobs.

Regarding generation Z and the large number of them who do not work and are not even in school, there are some common aspects with Europe and some particular ones. For example, we have parents who prefer to take care of their children and amplify this desire by not wanting to work too early. In the case of other countries, for example Switzerland, young people have a social aid of 1,000 francs, plus the state automatically provides them with housing, and if they were to get a job, they would have to pay 1,500 francs per rent from the start. Obviously, he prefers not to work and the money from the state.

Currently, we are in an atypical situation. The European Commission is starting to be more understanding not only with Romania, but also with other countries, because we have three or four overlapping crises and we also have the border conflict. The European Commission addresses these problems through the PNRR in the short term and thus in the European funds 2021-2027 in the medium term. There are also long-term programs, including social convergence at the European level.

The recruitment process is very long and we are trying to find solutions to make it as quick and simple as possible, but there are also checks that are carried out that are not public, checks that are related to European security, and that cannot be eliminated. But we are trying to find solutions and methods to shorten this process. We need regulatory and digitization changes to reduce bureaucracy in this field and we are working on these solutions.”

”Bangladesh ranks sixth in the world in terms of population, in a small city we have 17 million inhabitants. The main income we have comes from the labor force, then from the textile industry. After we opened a labor force center in Romania, about 30,000 workers arrived here, but most of them left and there are about 10,000 left in Romania, according to the information we have,” said Islam Mohammed Rafiqul, President of the Romania-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce.

”For now, we are waiting for approvals from the Romanian embassy, we have 15,000 approvals on the waiting list. The Romanian Embassy in New Delhi is very crowded, there they issue visas for countries: Nepal, Bangladesh and India, which is a problem that will have to be solved.

We hope that the Romanian authorities will come up with simplified criteria for bringing in workers from abroad, so that they can fill the gaps in Romania more quickly. In India, visas are now being issued for the files submitted in 2022, you can tell when they will reach the files from 2023.

And people from Bangladesh have requirements when they come here to work and that’s why they look for another job or go to another country. For example, we had a case where 30 people came for a courier company, employed on the minimum wage in the economy, but who did not receive a salary in the first months because they had to fulfill a certain work plan. It also happens that when the work visa expires, if it is not renewed, the worker is illegal and he has to go to another country to find work.

In order to simplify the mechanism for bringing in foreign workers, it is necessary for all three ministries involved to work together to find solutions. It would also be good to open a consulate in Nepal and one in Bangladesh to check visa files more quickly.”

”On BestJobs, the number of jobs offered remained at the same level as last year, at 250,000. What I noticed in the change was an increase in the number of applicants; in August we had an absolute record of 700,000 applications, and in total in 2023 we have a 45% increase compared to 2022, and the increase comes from young people. Employers also increased the contact rate of candidates. As a trend, a decrease in full remote jobs can be observed, now it was 9% of total applications, compared to 12% last year. Instead, we see an increase in jobs with a hybrid program,” said Mirela Popa, Agency Manager at BestJobs.

”On the part of the employers, we notice that retention is the magic word and they try to keep their employees through different methods, loyalty programs, qualification programs, etc. Regarding the publication of the salary, we campaign for transparency, but not all companies agree. We will see how the European regulation in the field evolves. What we see is that the jobs that have the salary displayed have 40% more applications than those that do not publish the salary level. Generation Z is changing the perception of the workplace and they want immediate benefits, not in the medium or long term. And they are willing to make a compromise on the salary for the first job, which lasts between one and two years. There is a labor force deficit in the area of technology companies, but also in the blue collar area.

The demand on BestJobs from abroad is high for doctors, dentists and other specialists in the field, then technicians, welders, mechanics. Generally in technical industries and the medical field. And we notice a growing refusal of the Romanians to leave, especially in the medical field, and we see that they are much more pragmatic than in the past, probably due to the wage increases from us. They make calculations related to the cost of living there, the cost of rent, and employers from abroad are less and less willing to financially support the relocation.

It would be good to return to education, to promote technical schools and to emphasize digital skills right from school, and here I mean including writing an email, communicating by phone. I think that these measures would have an impact later, not immediately, but it would be a healthy change in the long term.”

”We have been facing the lack of local labor force for several years and we have two solutions to this problem, neither of them perfect. One solution is automation, but it is not simple, it means digitization, significant investments, there are many elements to consider, it also requires money and time. The second is the simple solution: import from other countries that have a surplus. Now we are bringing labor from Southeast Asia, which has a tradition in this sense, the Middle East was built with labor from this region. The solution is not perfect because there are differences from culture to people’s goals, but it is a solution that can be implemented quickly, and in some activities it is the only solution,” stated Romulus Badea, Vice-President at Romanian Manpower Importers’ Employer Association.

”As preferences, we import labor in the blue collar area. Regarding Generation Z, i.e. 19-25 years old, I noticed several aspects. First of all, they no longer want to work, they are not interested in work. We have the highest percentage in Europe of NEET, meaning No Education Employment or Training. That is, young people who cannot find work or school, and they are 20% of the total. In other words, one out of five young people is idle, it does not appear in the state records.

For those who want to work, we see that no one wants to get dirty tomorrow and they don’t enroll in vocational schools. We no longer have welders, we no longer have mechanics, young people to do manual labor. As a result, we can no longer exchange generations. In addition, many left the country. The Department for Romanians Everywhere say that there are almost 10 million Romanians registered abroad. If we eliminate those outside the borders, Cernauti, the Republic of Moldova, Valea Timocului and others, we will see that there are still about 6 million from Romania. And the exodus did not end. Therefore, the import of labor is the only solution in the short and medium term.

Let’s not forget that Europe is an aging continent, with the West more than the East, but we are quickly catching up. Germany estimates that it will need 7 million people by 2030, if I remember correctly. But Germany is already planning its labor force search, that’s why they visited Romania, opened a center in Albania, signed an agreement with the Nigerian government. They arrived there after draining Central and Eastern Europe, which is no longer a viable source of labor.”

”We look not only at the number of people we need, but also at the quality of human resources and at the fact that, including the jobs that are, among the 390,000 SMEs, not enough is invested in employees, and the profitability per employee is not sufficient in the opinion of the patrons. At least this is what emerges from the study I did with over 300 companies, which I contacted as part of a human capital development program. The idea of investing in changing the mentality, including of the SME owner, of investing in education and qualification is important for all generations, who see that the requirements on the labor market change from year to year,” said Iulia Buciuman, DigitON Program Coordinator at CCIFER.

”We have a program through which we teach digital skills to 400 people. When we started the project, we thought that we would make the students learn to program, with a Zero Code type of technology, that is, to know how to make a website. We ended up changing the curriculum and teaching them Excel or spreadsheets.

Some, who had an SME with only one computer and seven people behind the computer, can be given as a positive example. Because there are many who said they don’t need it, that they are a company that doesn’t need technology. We encounter many problems from which we realize that we are only solving the base. If we do not wake up and invest constantly in education, we will become redundant.

When we talk about digital skills, we refer to the ranking made by the European Commission and where we are in last place. But CE doesn’t care if we individually have a computer and know how to use Whatsapp. They look at the level of infrastructure in the company, how the person in the company uses technology, if the company provides a computer, telephone, etc. We see that the vast majority of those among the 390,000 invest minimally in technology. And the problem is increasing the skills to bring added value.”

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