HP plans to hire 600 people for Bucharest service center but sees university graduates skills deteriorating

Hewlett Packard (HP) Romania plans to hire 600 people in 2011 for its Bucharest-based services center Global eBusiness Operations (GeBOC), which is similar to the number of people the company hired in 2010, GeBOC general manager Alexander Weigl has said. Weigl said Romania is an interesting market, but, unfortunately, university graduates are poorly trained and their skills have deteriorated over the past few years. He added foreign languages will be a requirement for employment. GeBOC is currently unfolding a project via the Sectoral Operational Program for Human Resources Development 2007-2013 (SOP HRD), which offers foreign language training to its employees. The program includes 21 employees who provide support for local and foreign clients. The project is co-financed via the European Social Fund through the SOP HRD 2007-2013 and amounts to EUR360,000. According to Weigl, the project targets to develop the multi-lingual capabilities of the company's employees. The program includes 321 employees who will take 3,000 hours of training courses to obtain a certificate for one of the following languages: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Dutch. The HP center in Bucharest offers remote processing services to customers in the EMEA-region (Europe, Middle East and Africa). Mediafax