Production has been steady in the past few years and will remain flat in 2018 due to a shortage of labor.
“We make 400,000 units a year, the maximum possible given the available workforce today. We have the capacity to expand but we are unable to find employees,” says Walter Fleck, training and communication manager with the company.
VeloCity started assembling bicycles in the fall of 2008 and has since completed 3 million of them, all bought by a single client, sporting goods retailer Decathlon.
The plant is currently employing about 250 people, but personnel turnover is high. The labor shortage is affecting every industry and the plant experiences it, too, the executive added.
Officials from every industry have repeatedly said the shortage of labor is the main obstacle for the growth of Romania’s GDP.
The VeloCity plant is run by NextCity company, which posted almost 30.6 million lei (EUR6.6 million) revenue in 2017, slightly up over 2016.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)