Privatisation cuts 3,000 Distrigaz jobs

The leading gas distributor on the Romanian market, Distrigaz Sud, with business worth over one billion euros last year, has cut its staff by around 3,000 people compared with 2005, when it was taken over by Gaz de France, as part of the restructuring and development process started by the French group. From the 10,700 employees that Distrigaz Sud had when the takeover occurred, the company has now reached over 7,900, a decline by 2,900 people compared with three years ago. “We are in a full process of altering and reorganising all our activities, and it will continue, in order for our activity to be more effective (…),” says Serban Cristea (photo), human resources manager of Distrigaz Sud, the person that the French entrusted with reorganising the company’s human resources after the takeover. When it broke off from Romgaz, in 2000, Distrigaz had around 10,000 employees, and later, upon the takeover by Gaz de France, in June 2005, had reached almost 10,900 people. “Those were the two key moments in the existence of Distrigaz Sud. At the beginning of the reorganisation process, we saw that staff numbers reflected management principles and systems in place, which we had to improve upon in order to increase the company’s service quality and performance. There was a voluntary departures programme, which included financial compensations,” adds the human resources manager. The number of Distrigaz staff saw a steep decline immediately after the takeover, reaching a little over 7,800 people in 2006, a number, which has remained relatively constant until present day.