Interview: Michelin keeps recruiting pace in Romania despite tight labor market

French group Michelin, one of the biggest tire manufacturers in the world, has doubled its number of employees in Romania, in the last five years, to over 4,000. Most of the employees work in the group’s three production sites in Prahova and Salaj, where two new investment projects worth EUR 93 million will create 250 new jobs. Meanwhile, the service center in Bucharest, launched in 2014, has reached a 15% share in the group’s total headcount in Romania and is developing fast. “Our total recruiting volume in the next five years is over 1,500 employees,” Gabriela Alexandru (pictured), Regional HR Director of Michelin Central Europe, a region of 14,000 employees, told Romania-Insider.com. This is no easy task on an increasingly tight local labor market, but the group relies on the power of its brand and dynamic recruiting strategies to attract talent. The company’s major challenge is getting technical candidates to areas outside big cities, respectively in Salaj and Prahova, as well as the low number of specialists in mechanics, automation and chemistry, Alexandru said. “As for the labor market in Bucharest, where we have been recruiting massively for the service center, our challenge is to become known to candidates in this activity area, given that we are generally perceived as an industrial company.” While Romania used to be considered a country of cheap and well-trained labor force, this is no longer the case, according to the Michelin representative. “From technical competencies to soft or leadership competencies, the Romanian school doesn’t supply graduates at the same level we see in other countries, even neighboring ones. However, Romanians are ambitious, intelligent and adaptable, and recover within the first years of work the competence gap compared to Westerners.”

Read below the full interview with Gabriela Alexandru, Regional HR Director or Michelin Central Europe: