The state aid stimulated hiring resources that were already in short supply and in high demand, says Eugen Schwab-Chesaru, vice-president for Central and Eastern Europe of advisory firm Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC).
The government did not allocate funds to increase the number of graduates to be hired by such companies, which means it only stimulated hiring some of the most skilled people on the market, the PAC official believes.
“Even in IT and even in the BPO area, in call centers and so on and so forth the people there were not previously unemployed because all those companies hire only people with skills in demand on the market. Such companies very rarely hire people who do not speak foreign languages, who are not good or very good with computers.”
This way such companies pay more for an employee that the government actually pays for, hence an artificial swelling of the labor market, he added.
Such state aid should be replaced by programs to increase the number of programmers, of graduates whose degree would enable them to get a job in an IT&C company or a call-center company, Schwab-Chesaru believes. If the government finds that it cannot support an increase in the number of graduates that IT&C companies can hire, then it should consider subsidizing for private education institutions.
“Wherever the government says it cannot go beyond 6,000 graduates a year, it should provide a 30% to 50% subsidy to a short-term private education system, which it should quickly authorize. It could be a two-year training system that ends with a certificate legally recognized by the government and private companies.”
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)