Enormous loss to Romanian economy due to shortage of skilled personnel
The losses for the Romanian economy caused by the lack of skilled personnel amount to an estimated 7.1 billion euro, shows a survey released by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) on Tuesday, which found that more than half of the Romanian entrepreneurs (52 pct) complain that the lack of skilled personnel is causing them financial losses.
Most entrepreneurs are faced with a lack of candidates especially when they seek to recruit technicians, administrative staff or sales experts.
"The difficulty in finding employees with the skills required for certain occupations restricts the growth potential of entrepreneurial companies and, implicitly, of the country's economy. Estimates by entrepreneurs show that their total loss due to the lack of workforce amounts to 3.7 pct of Romania's GDP. The massive migration of Romanian workers to the Western European countries, the aging of the population and the inadequate educational curriculum are the main reasons that have led to the current situation on the labor market," explains Ionut Simion, country managing partner - PwC Romania.
More than one third of Romanian entrepreneurs (36 pct) report that the employee shortage is causing them losses of up to 5 pct of the turnover, 10 pct say losses range between 5 and 10 pct, and 6 percent say such losses exceed 10 percent of turnover. However, 48 percent of the respondents said this is not a reason of loss for their company.
The measures taken by Romanian entrepreneurs to attract experts or develop the employees' digital skills are in- and out-of-company training, recruiting fresh graduates and workforce skills training through cooperation with technology start-ups.
A share of 68 pct of entrepreneurs say they have difficulties in finding technical, administrative or support staff, which places Romania at the top of Central and Eastern European countries by the shortage of such experts.
Also, 50 pct of entrepreneurs have problems in hiring sales staff, 46 pct cannot find engineers, 40 pct - trainers, and 22 pct of the employers cannot find senior management staff. For each of these occupations Romania ranks second in the region by staff shortage.
A share of 22 pct of the respondents report difficulty in hiring financial - accounting experts, which places Romania third in Central and Eastern Europe, and 18 pct have difficulties in hiring digital experts.
In Central and Eastern Europe, the estimated total economic loss caused by the shortage of experts stands at 358 billion euro, an amount exceeding the combined GDP of Croatia, Hungary and Slovakia, PwC reports.
The PwC survey was conducted between February and April 2019 on a sample of 2,993 decision-makers in companies with a turnover of at least 10 million euro in 53 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa; 600 respondents were from Central and Eastern Europe.
Source: Agerpres ROMANIAN ECONOMIC HIGHLIGHTS, July 8 – 14 , 2019, No. 27
