Financial crisis' impact on the Romanian HR industry

“Any company actively involved in Romanian or international economic scene cannot avoid reality and minimize the effects of the global crisis. […]Although the year 2008 was marked by positive results for Adecco’s activity in Romania, in the fourth quarter, the crisis started to take shape,” said Cristina Radulescu, country manager of Adecco Romania, to Wall-Street.

DHL recruiter, Catalina Scarlat, confirmed that certain problems have emerged in the human resources market. “The demand for job advertisements fell considerably, the companies relinquishing to their plans of recruiting personnel for positions that were not vital. First of all, the recruitment training companies are the ones that will reel the most from the economic crisis. The clients relinquish their training programs proposed for employees”.

On the other hand, Georgiana Spataru, HR Senior Consultant with Altres HR, said the demand offer for recruitment did not slow down.

On the contrary, the employers seek for candidates who will add value to the organization and the number of head-hunting projects and executive research has risen. Spataru added that human resources are a key factor in the current shaky economic landscape as the reduction of costs with personnel, of training programs, or of other advisory services require specialized assistance in HR.

In the Romanian market, given the opinions of the three polled HR specialists, the most affected sectors are financial, construction, car industry, and real estate. On the other hand, there are fields such as retail and industry, where the staff demand has maintained at high rates or even rose, said Georgiana Spataru.