Car maker Ford Romania will start hiring for its factory in Craiova, with 500 new job additions planned, according to the company. “This week we will start an employment process for 500 workers at our factory in Craiova. Ford will be mainly recruiting base operators for production lines, but we are also interested in expanding our workforce with maintenance specialists,” said Angella Alexander, the company's human resources manager.

The soon-to-be-employed people will work on the B-Max model and the EcoBoost engine. The recruiting process will end in May. After the 2007 privatization of the Craiova car factory, Ford promised to hire several thousand people.

The car maker will manufacture 60,0000 B-Max units this year at Craiova, and plans to build 100,000 more next year. The company had to invest EUR 675 million in technologies and producer as many as 250,000 car units by March this year, according to the 2007 privatization contract, but it recently reached a deal with the Romanian state to delay some of the investments and some penalties for a lower than initially agreed production level.

Ford will have to pay penalties for having manufactured fewer cars that agreed in the factory privatization contract, and will further delay investments while giving up on state aid for professional development of its staff, according to the recently agreed addition to the Automobile Craiova privatization contract. The recent addition to the contract flattens the state aid for these investments at EUR 75 million, after negotiations between May 2010 and December 2011, and should be enforced by Government Emergency Ordinance.

Ford negotiated with the Romanian state to simplify the restructuring process, extend the timeline for its post-privatization duties until the end of 2012 and a simpler procedure for investment guarantees.

Between April 2010 and October 2011, Ford manufactured 17,000 Transit Connect cars in Romania. Production for this model was further moved to Valencia, as the car maker decided to reorganize production in all its European factories. In the end, the number of cars produced in Romania will be significantly lower than agreed in the 2007 privatization contract.

Car sales went down to 110,000 units in Romania last year, from 324,000 in 2008.

Ford took over the bulk of shares in Automobile Craiova in 2007, in a deal worth some EUR 730 million, of which EUR 57 million was paid for the shares and the rest should have been directed to investments.

editor@romania-insider.com

(photo source: Ford)