Romania is now ‘stuck’ in the position of not being able to turn out sufficient skilled workforce for industrial companies, while investors are expanding their production facilities in the country.
Star Transmission (the Daimler unit making transmissions in Sebes i.e.) is interested in such a vocational school in Sibiu and Alba. Talks on the Kronstadt German Vocational School started in 2011 and the school started operations in 2012, said Christian von Albrichsfeld, general manager of Continental Automotive Romania. “Continental also sponsors a school in Carei and another in Timisoara, while the German Businesspeople Club sponsors a school in Brasov.”
Daimler will train the 500 new employees for its new EUR300 million investment in Sebes in Germany, thus incurring additional costs.
Romania has lost more than 90% of the youth looking to learn a trade in the last ten years, with the number dropping from more than 270,000 in 2002 to about 20,000 at the moment, according to the National Statistics Institute.
Therefore employers in the construction, electronics, steel, transport and food industries for instance have trouble finding skilled staff, considering the suitable candidates are now approaching retirement.
The vocational school issue was also raised at the protest of carmaker Dacia’s employees this February. Trade union deputy leader Ion Iordache at the time said the carmaker had “priests, teachers, lawyers and people completing their graduate degrees” manning the assembly lines. If the government wants to support the industry, it needs to promote improvement of vocational schools training skilled personnel for manufacturing businesses, Iordache added back then.
German automotive component manufacturer Continental, which has seven plants and three R&D centers in Romania, wants to hire another 1,000 people this year in Timisoara, Sibiu, Iasi, Brasov, Nadab and Carei. Star Transmission, too, announced it would hire 500 people for the new transmissions plant in Sebes complementing the already existing 1,200.
Continental is already assisting with the improvement of the curriculum, concept and the entire vocational school system in Romania. “The government is helping us, we’ve got meetings scheduled with Education Ministry state secretary Stelian Fedorca,” the company’s general manager said.
Romania was the country with the second highest number of new jobs created by Continental after China last year, with 1,500 new employees.
The company says it does find staff, but wants even better skilled personnel so it supports vocational education, as Romania needs such a system implemented for Continental and other manufacturers, von Albrichsfeld added.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)