IMG_2286-2-200x150,5Modifying the present labor code and introducing new measures that would make it less flexible than its present form is worrying investors, discussed participants during the Foreign Investors Eevnt organized by Business Review this week.

“I am particularly worried by the intention to modify the labor code. This intention is tacitly passed through Senate. It would be a terrible setback for progress in the industry,” said Constantin Stroe, the president of the Romanian Association of Car Producers – ACAROM. Some of the possible changes that could be brought to the labor code include the reintroduction of collective labor agreements, increasing the cost of overtime from 75 percent to 175 percent and setting individual performance targets through collective negotiations, explained Stroe.

Investors, too, have expressed concerns over a possible change of the labor code. “Labor costs are increasing in Romania. It is still competitive but it will be converging gradually to western European levels. So the only way to compensate this is to bring added value and to keep flexibility. The current labor code that was implemented starting 2011 is a good one (…). It would be extremely risky to challenge this and to have a new labor code without the proper dialogue taking place between employers and the unions and the civil society,” said Nicolas Maure, general manager, Dacia Renault Romania.

The availability of local labor force and its qualification remains one of the most important criteria when a company looks at setting up manufacturing facilities in Romania, stressed Dana Bordei, the head of the industrial department of CBRE.

Read more in BR’s next print edition

Simona Bazavan