A third of Romanian employers (32%) plan to add to their payrolls in the April – June 2017 interval, and only 7% foresee a decrease in staffing levels, according to the Q2 edition of the ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey.

Meanwhile, 60% of Romanian employers anticipate no change in the second quarter of the year.

Thus, the seasonally adjusted Net Employment Outlook stands at +16%, relatively stable in comparison to the previous quarter, but improving by 5 percentage points year-on-year.

In Romania, the Q2/2017 survey was conducted by InfoCorp Ltd. between January 18 and January 31, 2017, on a representative sample of 625 employers.

“For the first time since the launch of the Romanian edition of the ManpowerGroup research, in Q2/2008, Outlooks are positive in all eight regions and all of the 10 industry sectors in the country, although employee confidence still varies widely from one region or one sector to the next,” said Corina-Bianca Gonteanu, Strategic Director of Marketing Europe, ManpowerGroup.

The best job opportunities are expected in wholesale and retail trade sector, where the +30% Net Employment Outlook is the strongest reported since the third quarter of 2008, improving by a considerable 13 percentage points year-on-year. Meanwhile, the strongest industry forecast is once again reported by employers in the Manufacturing sector, where the Outlook stands at +31%.

However, the most significant year-on-year improvement is reported by employers in the finance and business services sector, who forecast a Net Employment Outlook of +26%, 19 percentage points stronger than in the second quarter of 2016 and 11 percentage points stronger than in the first quarter of 2017.

The survey also shows that the Outlooks are positive in all of Romania’s regions. The greatest quarter-on-quarter improvement is reported in the Center region, where the +29% Net Employment Outlook, the strongest in the country and the most optimistic since the study began in Romania, went up by 14 percentage points both over April – June 2016, and over the first quarter of 2017. Meanwhile, the strongest year-on-year improvement, of 17 percentage points, is reported in the South region where the Net Employment Outlook now stands at an optimistic +23%.

Employers are optimistic regardless of their organization size, with employers in large organizations reporting a Net Employment Outlook of +28%, the strongest since the third quarter of 2008. Employers in micro organizations are more cautious, reporting a Net Employment Outlook of +7%, according to Manpower.

Manpower: Romanian employers’ hiring intentions, strongest in eight years

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com