Global employment survey finds steady improvement in Romanian jobs market

A quarterly survey of hiring and firing trends around the world has found that recruitment levels in Romania have increased steadily since April 2009, with the majority of firms currently hiring.

The ‘Global Snapshot’ from the international recruitment firm, Antal surveyed more than 6000 organisations in 30 countries on whether they were currently hiring and firing at professional and managerial level. It then asked whether they planned to do so in the coming quarter. 55% of Romanian companies said that they were currently hiring – an increase of 16% since April 2009.

The survey also showed that Romanian organisations plan on keeping a steady level of recruitment activity with 53% continuing to hire over the next three months. Only 27% are currently letting managerial staff go and this number also looks set to remain more or less the same with 26% planning to fire people during the next quarter.

The rest of Eastern Europe shows mixed results, with Romania being one of the strongest markets. Russia has the highest level of hiring in the region, and in fact one of the highest across the world, with 71% of organisations now taking on new people. Hungary is experiencing the least recruitment activity with just 28% of companies hiring.

“Although a few countries are still seeing a decline in the employment market, the global picture has definitely improved once again,” says Antal’s CEO, Tony Goodwin. “As we said in September, we are most certainly not ‘out of the woods’ as yet and there may be more unpleasant economic surprises to come but it does seem as if organisations of all sizes are approaching 2010 with more confidence than would have seemed possible in the very dark days of January 2009. As a result we are already seeing the first clear signs of organisations thinking in terms of the ‘war for talent’ once more with more robust businesses making early moves to snap up the best people in their markets before general recovery becomes too apparent.”