At European level, Romania is outranked only by Great Britain and Poland.
“Romania is a highly attractive employer market due to availability of qualified workforce – over 100,000 highly skilled engineers active on the Romanian IT market – which in addition to their excellent technical and language skills, have a similar organizational culture and mentality to Western Europe. The main reason behind opening operations in Bucharest and Timisoara is the proximity to the well-established university campuses,” according to JLL.
Despite the economic downturn recorded in 2009, the slow economic recovery recorded in 2010, the political instability that has marked much of 2012, Romania has remained on the radar of multinational players. In addition to all drivers that run the decision making process in the selection of a shoring location, the increased availability of state aid schemes, place Romania high up the selection list. Most of the state aid schemes, which became available in 2007 and were due to conclude in 2013 but, now have increased probability to be extended beyond next year, according to the study.
The recent movements on the shoring market revealed in Romania the presence of higher value functions such as legal services, software engineering and financial services which required a different profile of candidates. On the other hand, these candidates are attracted by stability, instead of salary, career, respect, responsibilities and fulfilling a decision making position within such companies, according to Jones Lang LaSalle.
“The CEE market of approximately 100 million people is well positioned to respond to those growing needs from global corporations. The stalwarts, such as Poland and Romania for example, are seeing increasingly advanced roles being added to the spectrum of executed processes in the existing centers. In addition, within the central and eastern EU member states, the external accessibility, internal connectivity and infrastructure (transport and real estate) have, in a positive sense, changed profoundly since EU accession in 2004 and 2007 respectively,” said John Duckworth, managing director Central and Eastern Europe at Jones Lang LaSalle.
“The real estate sector across the CEE region is currently well placed to accommodate those entering or expanding within the market. The majority of office markets, both in the capitals and in the regional cities, currently feature conditions favorable to the occupier,” said Kevin Turpin, head of Research Central and Eastern Europe at Jones Lang LaSalle.
The study was elaborated alongside Ernst& Young and The Grafton Employment Group.