At the end of 2013, Cluj had almost 11,700 people working in the IT&C industry, double as many as in 2008, a national growth record. Bucharest on the other hand, lost more than 3,000 people in this business, but remains the undisputed leader in terms of number of IT&C jobs.
Very few sectors of the economy came out of the crisis with more employees than they had in 2008, when Lehman Brothers collapsed, triggering worldwide recession.
National Statistics Institute data show that Romania’s industry lost more than 250,000 jobs in 2008-2013, with the processing industry having to shed more than 215,000 and the construction sector more than 91,000. However, some sectors created jobs in 2008-2013, such as administrative and support services, and information technology and communications.
IT&C includes those companies whose core business is software and games publishing, IT services or software development. Administrative and support services include call centers.
“There are a number of reasons, which can explain the statistics,” says Andrei Kelemen, executive director of CLUJ IT Cluster, a network of IT companies founded in October 2012 whose purpose is to boost export competitiveness of Romanian IT products and services.
“The presence of universities, as well as of private enterprise, which try to make up for the shortage of skills is a factor that continues to attract investments here,” Kelemen says.
Moreover, the IT&C companies that have already set up shop in Cluj have started to develop contacts in Western economies, in Nordic countries or even across the Atlantic in search of new investment.
“It’s about networking, and there is still room for development.”
Another factor that helped the IT&C sector in Cluj grow was the good reputation of the outsourcing services.
The county with the second highest growth of IT&C jobs is Brasov, which had 4,430 employees in this business in 2013, almost 50% more than in 2008.
Third is Ilfov County (around Bucharest), where the headcount went up from 2,023 in late 2008 to almost 3,500 in 2013.
On the other hand, Bucharest lost 3,235 jobs in 2008-2013 but remains the most important market for IT&C jobs in the country, with almost 70,000 employees.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)