Thirty-one percent of a total of 1,189 companies surveyed forecast an increase in the workforce, 36% expect to maintain the number of employees, 15% plan to reduce staff, and 18% are not sure whether to retain or release personnel. Thus, the net employment rate, the difference between employers who plan to reduce the workforce and those who forecast to increase it, is +16%, or an increase of 6 percentage points compared to the previous six months and 24 percentage points less compared with the same period of 2022.
“The main problem facing employers in the country is the painful lack of people. We are melting at the rate of ten people per hour, and within a few years nearly 30% of the population will retire. Both the state and organizations like ours are making serious efforts to return at least a small part of the Bulgarians abroad, but the results are not encouraging at the moment. We all have a lot of work ahead of us in this direction if we want to normalize not only the labor market, but the entire economy of Bulgaria,” commented Nadya Vasileva, chairperson of BKZ.
The plans of employers in Burgas to hire new employees in the next six months registered the biggest increase — 4 percentage points, or an employment rate of +12%. Compared to the previous researched period, the forecasts of employers in Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna improved by one percentage point and the employment rate reached +66%, +11% and +10%, respectively. Ruse is the only region in the country where companies’ plans to increase their workforce reported a decline, with the employment rate falling from +6% to +1% for the period April 2024 – September 2024.
The sectors where employers share the biggest increase in their plans to hire compared to the previous researched period, are “Hospitality and restaurant industry” (growth of 7 percentage points) and “Wholesale and retail trade” (increase by 5 percentage points), with the employment rate reaching +11% and +16%, respectively.
What are the personnel that will be most sought after in the coming years
In the Information Technology and Outsourcing sectors, employer forecasts improved by three and one percentage points, respectively, reaching employment rates of +24% and +13%.
The forecast of +9% for companies from the “Financial and insurance activities, real estate and business services” sector is maintained, and all other sectors included in the BKZ study — “Manufacturing”, “Transport, storage and communications”, “Construction”, “Public and social sector”, “Electricity, gas and water”, “Agriculture, forestry and fisheries” and ‘Extractive Industry’ show a decline compared to the previous six months, with the biggest decline in the ‘Public and Social Sector’ (6 percentage points) and the ‘Extractive Industry’ sector being the only one to forecast a negative employment rate (- 1%) for the period April 2024 – September 2024.
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“The consequences of the chronic head-on collision of the business with the shortage of personnel will continue to be felt not only in the upcoming summer season, but at least until the end of September, if the 17-point procedure for importing personnel is not facilitated and the unemployed and often neglected social groups in the labor market. I am optimistic that with the development of technology this could happen much faster than it seems,” added Nadia Vasileva.
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