On the other hand, the employees who managed to survive the wave of restructuring have enjoyed salary hikes of as much as 30% in the past 8 years, but these were “wiped out” by several factors, with inflation at the top.
Despite salaries’ being RON1,000 higher than ahead of the crisis, the growth pace of salaries in the system were two times slower than the national average. Thus, for March, the net average salary in the economy got close to RON1,700 per month, up 68% against March 2007.
“Banks either gave up training departments, certain HR areas and outsourced them, or retained the respective functions, but the people who were left took up other tasks as well. Despite this situation, salaries continued to grow as there was a focus on the key people in the organization. This means they did not grow in the client support area, but in the financial, policy and IT ones,” believes Diana Andreescu, an account manager with the Romanian recruiting and temporary workforce leasing company Pro Solutions Agency.
She specified basic salaries also stalled in banks’ call centers and that the possible increases employees benefited from were either performance bonuses or bonuses for solving more client applications or for taking over calls from other colleagues. However, bonuses were not substantial ones, but varied between RON100 and 300.
On the other hand, calculated in euros, banking employees’ salaries are smaller at present than they were 8 years ago as the Romanian currency has advanced by around 30% against the euro during this period.
“Personnel, as well as organizational restructuring moves had the very purpose to boost efficiency and lay the focus on performances in the field. An increase between 2007-2014 is not an absolute indicator and it needs to be correlated with cost, consumption, inflation trends. Thus, we will see a real increase might even be smaller. Also, we cannot overlook the fact that since 2007 salary taxes have changed,” said Gabriel Gatejoiu, business development manager with Professional services agency specializing in recruitment.
He added the trend of salaries can be influenced by a series of factors such as bonuses, benefits.
“In recent years, banking system salaries have advanced at a slower clip compared with other industries. While other industries’ growth percentage ranged between 4 and 5%, the banking system saw growth of between 2 and 3%,” said Gatejoiu.
While some HR specialists maintained the restructuring moves the banking system saw during the crisis did not include middle management, Diana Andreescu says middle managers were not spared.
“Signs for 2014 in this industry are not very positive. I haven’t heard about plans to shut down further banks, but there seem to be plans for the takeover of some businesses, which could eventually mean further layoffs,” adds Andreescu.
At the end of the first two months of this year, over 71,000 people worked in a bank, 11,500 fewer compared with the crisis onset, according with INS data.
At present, an entry-level employee in the field gets a net salary of between RON1,200 and 1,500 per month, according to market data.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)