Companies are having a hard time with rising wages, offering work from home, but no pay increase

“With the arrival of the summer season, positions in tourism and agriculture are increasingly in demand. In Bulgaria, there is a shortage of all kinds of personnel in almost every sector. The lack of personnel has been the main problem for almost two years now. There are not enough people to be hired, to talk about qualifications and wages,” commented Valentin Krastev from the Employment Confederation.

A third of companies plan to hire employees within this year. Most personnel are sought in Burgas, according to the data from the latest forecast survey of the Bulgarian Employment Confederation.

According to the guest, the situation is difficult to predict, mainly the economic situation. For two or three years, we haven’t had a single big investor who has entered Bulgaria, noted Krastev.

Most companies are dependent on the economic situation, and the lack of a stable government makes many of them give evasive answers, it became clear from the words of the guest of Bulgaria ON AIR.

“There is a slight return to the office at the moment due to the effects of inflation. Companies are finding it increasingly difficult to cope with rising wages, needing to perform each job more efficiently and trying to regain control of work processes.” said Krastev.

It turns out to be a competitive advantage to keep working from home and at the expense of this the company saves a 10% salary increase.

Krastev added that movement is so easy that we cannot stop Bulgarians abroad from returning to our country. At the moment, however, a wave of such compatriots of ours is not noticeable.

“If someone is worried about being displaced by artificial intelligence (AI), they should try to retrain themselves so that they can work with AI most easily. Companies are trying to automate a lot of processes. At first, they are hindered by the bigger investment. It is logical that they use AI due to the lack of personnel. This is the plan B they are aiming for,” explained Valentin Krastev.