“There’s been a pressure on the market in terms of recruitment process and offers extended. This is mainly due to the companies, which participate in the IT&C state aid scheme. They have to hire a sizable number of people to meet the requirements of the scheme,” says Grigoriada Stroe, who is in charge of the HR policies in a multinational with 1,400 employees in Romania.
“We believe this situation is not sustainable and creates artificial salary increases on the IT market, affecting the education system in the process because students choose to drop out of college for unrealistic salaries.”
The average net salary in the IT services industry reached more than 4,500 lei (about EUR1,000) this July, which is 16% higher than in July 2014, according to National Statistics Institute data. IT sector employees earn 2.4 more than a minimum wage employee on average.
Grigoriada Stroe’s statement is surprising, because she represents a multinational and so far only local entrepreneurs have been complaining about salaries, since the state aid scheme has mostly benefited multinationals. They are unable to meet funding requirements because they do not possess the financial strength of international giants, and the scheme puts them at a disadvantage, because foreign companies can pay higher salaries and therefore poach their staff, the local entrepreneurs said.
Professors at colleges offering IT degrees, too, are complaining that students take full time jobs while in college lured by the high salaries, which ultimately prevents them from accumulating the necessary knowledge to develop their skills to the fullest.
“We do have this problem (of students quitting school to take jobs i.e.) because workforce demand is very high and entry-level salaries attractive,” says Professor Radu Gramatovici, assistant dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science of the University of Bucharest.
These young people quickly progress to a higher salary level, maybe a bit too high than they should be getting for the work they do and lured by that they push other things aside. “If salaries were to grow gradually, we wouldn’t see these attractive offers extended so fast.”
Colleges that offer IT degrees in Romania turn about 7,000 graduates a year but the market needs at least twice as many, employers in the industry say.
“We believe the situation will return to normal once the current aid scheme ends. We hope its future iterations will ensure normal and constructive development of the market,” Ubisoft’s Grigoriada Stroe said.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)