The number of employees in the economy reached 4.43 million persons at the end of June 2014, up by almost 55,000 against June 2013 and by 126,000 from 2012. The “champion” of hiring was the field of administrative and support services. The category included BPO-type or SSC-type outsourcing services, as well as call centers, a field where the number of employees has risen by around 45,000 persons in the past two years.
A BPO services employer that has recruited massively in the past years is Genpact, which has now reached some 2,500 employees in Romania, from around 1,600 in early 2012. Genpact is recruiting further and the company this month signed a lease contract for another 3,000 square meters in Cluj.
“For this year, we plan to hire another 500 persons,” says Crina Ilie, a recruitment and training manager for Europe at Genpact.
The manufacturing industry has also witnessed a significant increase in the number of employees in the past two years, particularly based on recruitment done by car part producers. Thus, almost 44,000 new jobs have been created in the manufacturing industry in the past two years, while the field of electricity generation and supply has lost around 10,000 employees in the same period.
“Indeed, we can see a positive trend of hiring in the field of production and should social contributions be cut in autumn, the number of new jobs is likely to rise,” said Adrian Nicolae, general manager of recruitment company Trenkwalder.
According to Roxana Tesiu, HR Head for Europe at Wipro Technologies, more diverse and better paid opportunities are still to be found in the IT industry. In this field, the number of employees has risen by over 11,000 persons in the past two years, to 44,000 people.
Headcount declines were still registered in the banking sector (-7,000 employees in two years), transport (-6,700) and in energy generation (-9,700), according to data centralized by ZF on the basis of information from the National Statistics Institute.
As regards the other indicators of the labor market, the average salary advanced by over 8%, to almost 1,690 lei in June. On the other hand, while the number of new jobs rose, the unemployment rate stalled at 7.1% in June 2014, flat from mid-2012.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)