The labor crisis is becoming one of the main concerns of businessmen, displacing other worrying topics such as the inflation rate and rising prices, topics that worried almost half of the executives at the end of last year.

The finding comes from Impetum Group’s CONFIDEX survey, which also found that 27% of managers said they were concerned about labor shortages in the first half of this year, up 16% from the end of last year.

How will this concern evolve by the end of the year, and what solutions do companies have to address the workforce crisis?

Bohdan Badya, president of Hidroelectrica SA management, believes that the lack of specialized labor is a serious problem. “There were years when industry and companies did not participate in the education sector, so vocational schools and universities with a technical profile capable of creating the next generation of specialists significantly reduced their activities or even closed,” he said during a qualitative interview , conducted for the release of the second semester of the CONFIDEX study, which will be published soon.

The solution proposed by Bohdan Badya is the development of specialized education and orientation towards the workplaces of the future.

The integration of some employees from the state system into the private environment is considered by some managers as another possible solution to the workforce crisis.

“The ratio between people involved in productive activities in the private sector and activities with less added value in the administration must be changed. There are millions of people whose skills could be turned into more productive activities if these jobs were eliminated through reorganization, de-bureaucratization, digitization, and these people would become available as resources for private sector competence,” said Alexandru Reff, country managing partner. Deloitte Romania and Moldova.

Another solution that Romanian managers turn to is the import of human resources, which, however, has proven to be a difficult process. Romania is not an attractive country for immigrant workers, so retaining them is a problem in itself.

“Although last year inflation was the phenomenon that mostly attracted the attention of public opinion, the real concern of Romanian managers in the first half of 2023 is related to the labor force crisis. This is caused, on the one hand, by the lack of human resources that specialize in specific areas of activity, and on the other hand, by the fact that the domestic labor market is still not attractive enough to keep talented people on the ground and able to work.

In addition, we see that there is also a qualitative problem of labor relations. This is generated by periods of uncertainty that create restlessness among employees and, perhaps, even defocus and impatience, which manifests itself in the process of deepening internal relations in the organization or even in the professional sphere,” says Andrii Chonka, CEO of Impetum Group.

The next CONFIDEX survey, which came out already on the 9th, will show the current perception of businessmen about the labor shortage, as well as the economy as a whole. The results of the new study will be published in early November.

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