Dacia starts hiring after 11,000 layoffs since privatisation

Automobile Dacia, the Romanian carmaker with turnover forecast above 2bn euros this year, will recruit 600 individuals by the end of next year, with the majority of the new employees to be involved in plant activities.
The recruitment programme, which was initiated by representatives of Logan carmaker earlier this year, comes after the French group had cut around 11,000 positions at the plant in Mioveni, as stipulated in the privatisation contract.
The recruitment programme was started because of the growing need for personnel at the Mioveni plant, after production increased and Dacia set a target of 350,000 units for the end of next year.
According to the statistical data provided by the Association of Automotive Manufacturers and Importers, production rose by 10% to 147,106 units in the first three quarters of this year, from almost 134,000 units during the same period last year.
“Most future employees are needed at the plant for the departments that currently require personnel. We also require staff for our support centres, such as our commercial department in Bucharest, and for legal, financial and marketing departments,” stated Dacia representatives.
According to the representatives, the need for an additional workforce emerged after the Logan project was launched, when layoffs at the plant were also halted.
“The social programme negotiated in the privatisation contract stipulated the redundancy of 11,000 employees, so the number of staff at the plant would reach 16,850. At the same time, several thousand people chose to leave the plant, but stayed within the industrial park and were employed by producers such as Auto Chassis International and other suppliers. As a result, when the Logan programme started, there were around 12,000 employees,” stated Silviu Sepciu, communications manager of Automobile Dacia.
At the end of last year, the carmaker employed around 11,833 individuals at the Mioveni plant, while the number has increased constantly this year after investments in expansion were finalised. At present, Automobile Dacia has 13,300 employees.
In parallel with the recruitment programme at Automobile Dacia, Renault is also carrying out a similar programme for Renault Technologie Roumanie, the engineering centre that will be located near Titu.
The company already employs 670 engineers, but the number is expected to rise to 3,000.
Dacia, one of the biggest private companies in Romania, is forecast to exceed the 2bn-euro mark in terms of turnover this year. Since the acquisition of the majority stake in the company in 1999, Renault’s total investments in Dacia have topped 1bn euros.