The human resource business had been one with the highest growth rates in the past few years, due to a local market labor shortage and company expansion plans. However, major players in the field say the time for 50-60 percent annual growth is over. “The financial crisis is affecting our recruiting business in Bucharest and especially in [the western city of] Timisoara, where 60 percent of the companies are operating in the auto industry, which is severely affected,” said the General Manager of AIMS Romania, Mihaela Perianu. AIMS is one of the top five players on the local human resource market.
According to Perianu, a recruiting company is hit by any recession period, especially when it is focused on middle management recruiting. “These positions are the first to be cut... most companies will undergo optimization by lowering the number of middle managers,” she added. Lugera&Makler, the second-largest HR company locally, will not register losses because it reorganized its operations, focusing on other services than recruitment, according to Managing Partner Cristiana Savuica. “We had clients who recently decided to stop hiring, which is natural in terms of the market evolution. This leads to a decline in operations in the recruitment department,” Savuica added. However, companies will still need recruiting services, because the personnel turnover is still high, said the General Manager of Professional, the fourth-largest HR company locally, Cristina Pasat. “Overall, we do not estimate losses due to the financial crisis. It is likely that the business growth rate is no longer as rapid as in Q1 of 2009, but it is up to each manager to battle crisis situations,” she said. (R.I.)
