StarFoods employees can receive bonuses of up to €220 for any new staff they recommended

“Most of the company’s recruitment needs are covered through internal efforts. About one fifth of vacancies are filled by means of internal recommendations. This system is efficient, especially for entry-level positions,” Anda Drilea, the enterprise’s Human Resource (HR) Manager East Balkans, told Business Standard.

StarFoods does not plan any significant recruitment in 2009, but intends to finalize its sales force expansion project, which involved hiring 50 people in 2008, and require the recruiting of only staff to cover any personnel turnover.

Salary rises in 2009 were “equal to those offered in 2008, and significantly above inflation,” added Drilea.

The company’s HR Manager does not believe that the quality of the work force available on the market has changed as a result of the crisis, which generated layoffs, although the number of applicants interested in finding a job has risen.

“However, I expect that the 2008 market specialist deficit, which, according to statistics, was increasing to some 40 percent, will drop slightly due to the large number of layoffs already effected and those that have only been announced, as well as Romanian specialists working abroad, who will return to Romania due to the economic crisis,” Drilea said.

The company’s HR Manager believes that there was a specialist deficit in fields such as IT, finance, marketing, and top management positions, and especially in sales last year. The enterprise’s personnel turnover amounted to 25-30 percent in 2008.