Recruiting Romanian personnel

There probably are 3 important types of foreign investors in Romania: those interested in real estate, those interested in Romania’s market potential and those looking to reduce costs by expanding into low salary zones such as Eastern Europe. For this last type of investor there are some questions to be raised:
Is it worth it? What are the real salaries in the field I am interested in?
What are the same salaries in other similar countries?
How can I gather information before making a decision?
Do I have the big picture?
Of course we won’t be able to offer you complete answers in this article. We will be more realistic than that: we will just give you some information that hopefully you would find helpful for taking the right business decision.
The lowest salary in Romania is 440 Lei/month. That would be less than 150 Euros. Perhaps a more useful piece of information would be that a Romania student (of Economics for instance) would be paid around 250 Euros at his first job (in Bucharest). However amounts will quickly rise for an employee with a degree and 1-3 years of experience. (Some Romanian recruiting companies refer to entry-level employees as below 3 years of experience and mid-level, over 3 years of experience. In reality however it would be quite hard to find an employee with 2 years of experience whose financial requirements are specific to “entry-level” positions. This is largely because in Bucharest it is quite hard to find trained and experienced employees in some areas.)
*Note: Please keep in mind that differences in salaries are quite important between Bucharest and the province. An article dated from October 2006 published in the financial magazine “Banii Nostri” claimed that an average employee of a Bucharest-based company earns a salary of 2,600 Lei (about 750 Euros) with about 1,000 Lei over the country’s average. The Bucharest top salaries for highly trained (top) specialists are as follows: 1. marketing specialists – around 1,600 Euros; 2. legal specialists – 1,300 Euros; 3. Human Resources – 1,100 Euros (these are gross amounts).
Salaries have quickly risen because of the lack of specialists in some areas. Examples would be the banking sector, IT (Software), Legal sector, constructions. Because of the same reason an employer will also have a hard time keeping a trained employee and not losing him over to the competition (quite a common practice in Romania).
What are the same salaries in other similar countries?
If we were to trust the Internet and the rest of the press as a reliable source of information the differences between salaries in Eastern-European countries in the same stages of development are insignificant (Romania and Bulgaria for instance). Whatever relative difference between the two it can quickly decrease importance when compared to differences between other legislation and taxation issues.
How can I gather information before making a decision?
The best way to gather information would definitely be to interact with employers and employees in specific areas. The quickest way to do that is check out www.ejobs.ro and www.bestjobs.ro, the biggest online databases of employees in Romania. Here you can surf some of the offers (get some raw information on the quantum of salaries – if you are really patient as most of the offers do not contain a salary estimation) and even place your own offers. One very important thing to keep in mind (that is also perhaps very specific to the Romanian Human Resources market) is that most times less then 50% are truly interested in your job ad and show up at the actual interview.
Of course there is a number of Romanian specialists in certain areas, top-management etc. that will be very difficult to find on the Internet or at least on common job-search websites. The best way to go about solving this problem would be to either contact a Recruiting company (some are specialized in certain areas) or place an ad in Romanian business newspapers or magazines (like Capital www.capital.ro).
Do I have the big picture?
Romanian salaries are substantially lower than those in Western Europe. This is a fact however the big picture must not be overlooked. What is the big picture? It is a conclusion after analyzing the taxes, the laws, the infrastructure, the level of employee training. Some good advice would be to contact a local law firm to give you an idea on the legislation and taxes, contact a recruiting company, an accountant then make a pertinent decision.