Most employees in Plovdiv are sought in the IT sector

Nadia Vasileva, chairperson of BCZ

Photo: digitalk.bg

Employers in Plovdiv predict that companies in the region that will hire people in the next six months are 11% more than those that intend to lay off workers. This was commented on by the chairman of the Bulgarian Employment Confederation (BKZ), Nadia Vasileva, in the program “Day after Day” on Radio Plovdiv. The confederation has published its sixth forecast labor market survey, in which employers share moderate plans to hire new employees for the period April-September 2024.

“There is a rather large uncertainty, it is also noticeable in other regions, but in Plovdiv it is much greater. I suppose this is due to the fact that we chronically have an uncertainty from a political point of view as well. Elections are coming up and this means that employers are still not clear about where things will go, so they can build their strategies and plans for their development. On the other hand, they are extremely worried about not being able to find people, and importing workers from outside is still a very heavy procedure, and this is messing up their growth plans. If they have nowhere to find people, they have no way to plan growth for their business development”emphasized Vasileva.

According to her, the most employees in Plovdiv are traditionally sought in the information technology sector, wholesale and retail trade and the outsourcing sector, and even production.

“This time the production surprised me a lot, because we got a very low result there, which was not the case until now. And in Plovdiv and the region, there is a stably developed production. Although there was a very big collapse in the information technologies, they are still continuing, albeit with more -low pace to look for employees, and in the retail and wholesale sector it is normal to look for workers, in order for the economy to run, there must be sales, so many companies are looking for people in sales to be able to materialize their production “Nadya Vasileva pointed out.

She added that the outsourcing sector is based on external employers and because of this accurate forecasts cannot be made, as everything depends on the economies of the countries that have exported their structures to Bulgaria.

“But the production is what really worried me. And I hope that in our next study the results will be more optimistic, unfortunately that was not seen in this studyNadya Vasileva also said.

From the labor market survey of the Bulgarian Employment Confederation, it is clear that employers generally share moderate plans for hiring new employees for the period April 2024 – September 2024. 31% of a total of 1,189 surveyed companies 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.

“This is a trend that we have been noticing for a long time and the demographic structure of Bulgaria is among the main culprits for what is happening, as there is negative growth in the country and people who leave the labor market are very difficult to replace. and fewer people are entering this market. This is a trend that cannot be reversed either in the near or distant future. What we can do is consider what measures we can take to attract people and engaged in importing workers from third countries”, also commented the chairman of the BKZ.

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