“The layoffs were mostly due to project closings. We tried to keep the key-people, with seniority, valuable engineers,” the Managing Director of ITC Networks, Doru Mardare, told Business Standard.
Also, the company’s estimates regarding this year’s net sales indicate a 20 percent decline. “Compared to last year, when we had sales worth $25 million, this year we estimate some $19-20 million,” Mardare said, adding that projects are more difficult to obtain in this period, and the negotiation time for finalizing a partnership increased to three months from one month in 2008.
So far, the difficult economic context, which generated a decline in consumption and investments in IT, led to staff downsizing especially in the IT retail and distribution segments. Players decided either to file for bankruptcy, such as K Tech Electronics, to close down stores, such as Romsoft - Depozitul de Calculatoare, or to lay off personnel, such as Tornado, which cut the number of its employees by more than 40 percent.
