“The big problem of companies right now is that they have trouble finding skilled and unskilled workers. They ended up recruiting unskilled workers via churches and via contracts with prisons in Romania (…),” said Elena Antoneac, head of operations with Nestlers Group, a relocation services provider.
Employers in Romania are now working on a series of amendments to the labor legislation so as to make it easier for non-EU immigrants to get work permits, which they will soon submit to the Interior Ministry.
Deputy Varujan Pambuccian, a member of the Chamber of Deputies IT&C committee, too, warned about the need to import immigrants, when he introduced a bill in the Parliament on modifying the law on Romanian citizenship, to enable the areas with a high shortage of skills (such as the IT sector) to hire people from other countries.
There is incredible demand for skilled people, Nestlers Group’s Antoneac says.
“Romanian entrepreneurs have managed to attract foreign investors and there has been a tremendous increase in orders (‘Made in EU’ sounds better than ‘Made in China’) and companies are vying over the same people. The only skilled labor sources are outside the EU and hardly inside it.”
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)