The company owns 7 car part plants and 3 development centers employing around 13,000 people in Romania after having invested of EUR830 million in the country.
“Continental Sibiu will be the largest employer in the region. In Sibiu, we will come to over 4,000 employees in the coming period from 2,800 at present. Of these, 1,500 will be engineers,” said Lacramioara Daraban, HR manager at Continental Automotive Systems Sibiu.
In 10 years, the company’s Sibiu unit went from 30 to 2,800 employees, of whom 800 are engineers. During this interval, four production modules and a R&D center have been built in the western industrial area of Sibiu. Development plans relate to a fifth module. Continental in March started works for a 7,000-sqm building where the new R&D center will be fitted out.
“Most of recruited people are people we train in collaboration with Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu. Continental grows on the basis of universities and generations it trains and less by harming other companies in the area,” said Daraban.
The German group’s plans are expanding only several months after it announced the creation of 1,000 new jobs in 2014, beside the 1,500 jobs created in 2013.
“It is not easy for us to cover the engineer positions. But considering the research center of Sibiu is one of the largest in Transylvania, engineers are choosing us and not other companies,’ said Daraban.
The salaries of Sibiu unit’s employees have risen in the past year, according to the company’s officials and have been on an upward trend since 2004.
“We are focusing on engineers and on people who can manage complex technological processes and these competences need to be rewarded,” said the company’s HR manager.
Nationwide, a specialist earns around EUR1,000. The engineers filling management positions in the automotive industry earn between EUR1,300 and EUR2,500 per month, according to recruitment market data.
“We’ve had very few new investments lately, but those who are already in Sibiu have expanded considerably. We can call this phase the phase of intensive investments compared with what we had in the early 2000s, when there were extensive investments. This does not mean no investors arrived here, but the travel, services fields were targeted, and less the industrial output area,” said Klaus Iohannis, Sibiu mayor.
Beside Continental, another automotive part producer that invested in Sibiu is Germany’s Marquardt.
According to National Statistics Institute data, in May 2013, the net average salary in industry and constructions stood at RON1,882/month in Sibiu, from RON1,031 in May 2007 (a 82% increase). At a national level, the net average salary rose by 60% between 2007 and 2013.
The new investments in Sibiu come only several months after the Romanian state delivered new highway sections on Corridor IV, between Sibiu and the Hungarian borders. Also, Continental’s Sibiu headquarters is just several hundred meters away from A1 highway.
“As regards highways, we are a supplier delivering parts in a ‘just in time’ regime and delivery times can only be guaranteed with the help of highways,” said Oswald Kolb, general manager of Continental Automotive Systems Sibiu.
On the other hand, he underscored the lack of highways crossing the Carpathians and securing a direct link with the West is hurting competitiveness, and investors will come only where there’s infrastructure.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)