For half of the SME owners in Romania, it is difficult to find employees with the right skills (Eurobarometer)
For almost half of the small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) in Romania it is difficult to find employees with the right skills, and most of them face difficulties in bringing in foreign workers from outside the European Union, according to a Eurobarometer survey recently published by the European Commission.
Asked whether or not it was difficult for their company to find workers with the right skills in the past 24 months, 23% of Romanian respondents said it was “very difficult” and 26% said it was “rather difficult”. Only 2% of the Romanian company representatives surveyed said that it was “very easy” to find employees with the right skills, and 10% answered that it was “rather easy”. 38% gave irrelevant answers and 1% said they don't know.
By comparison, in the EU as a whole, 24% of SME respondents said it was “very difficult” and 22% said it was “rather difficult” to find workers with the right qualifications.
Romanian small and medium-sized companies also turned to workers from outside the EU, but in a very small proportion. 8% of the SMEs participating in the survey were looking for workers from outside the EU, and 3% tried to bring in employees from other EU member states. Almost 90% of Romanian SME respondents declared that they did not even try to hire foreigners (neither from other EU states, nor from outside the EU). In comparison, 79% of European SMEs did not try to recruit from outside their country.
The relevant respondents in Romania said that, in the last 24 months, they sought non-EU workers for the following occupations and fields:
- Drivers and transport operators – 24%
- Skilled construction workers – 22%
- Food processing and preparation workers – 14%
- Cleaning and support workers – 11%
- Civil and Structural Engineers – 10%
The Romanian SMEs in question faced, however, barriers to recruiting workers from third countries. In the past two years, 66% of respondents found it “totally difficult” to recruit workers from outside the EU. Only 15% of Romanian SME respondents said it was a “totally easy” recruitment process.
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