In 2008, the 74,000 companies in this business employed about 575,000 people; last year the number was down to fewer than 350,000 employees, a decline at the same rate as the drop in the number of companies in the construction sector, Trade Registry data show.
“An unskilled worker doesn’t earn more than EUR350 per month, while abroad they can earn EUR600 to EUR750. Moreover, construction workers have also left in the past few years due to the decline in investments in public projects – schools, hospitals, highways,” says Adriana Iftime, general manager of the federation of the construction companies in Romania FPSC.
The decline in governmental investments in the construction sector started in 2013-2014, somewhat rebounded in 2015, when the EU-funding period ended so the money had to be spent, she added.
“There was pressure on the authorities to finish the projects they had started at the end of 2015, but decline returned in 2016.”
The projects that can mobilize most workers at the moment are residential complexes, but they cannot carry the entire construction market on their own. It is infrastructure projects or public buildings that need most workers.
“There’s a strange phenomenon here. There’s a change in attitude towards work. On the one hand, some people grew old and left the system, and on the other the young people do not want to work and settle for welfare,” Adriana Iftime says.
Sibiu-based CON-A for instance, a company held by businessman Mircea Bulboaca, sought to hire people from rural areas of Moldavia, offering them 1,800 lei (EUR392), plus transportation and accommodation, but they turned him down. CON-A is one of the largest entrepreneurial construction companies in Romania.
“Several teams of workers have left and gone to Ireland since 2012 in search of better pay we couldn’t provide. Our group now has about 1,000 employees and we would need about 200 more,” Mircea Bulboaca said.
Average wage in the company is now RON3,240, he says. CON-A is currently building several plants in Cluj-Napoca, Zalau, Sibiu, Slatina and Bucharest and working on the Craiova and Targu-Jiu stadiums. It is a top five builder in Romania, having posted RON362.6 million revenue and about RON18 million profit in 2016. (EUR1=RON4.5920)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)