Schieffer has trouble finding medium-skilled staff

Schieffer Romania, the local division of the Austrian automotive components manufacturer, believes that the local workforce recruitment pool can no longer provide additional staff for the automotive industry, as even the medium-skilled people are hard to find. Schieffer, which makes injection-moulded plastic parts, rubber assembled parts and hydraulic hoses, intends to increase the number of its employees by about 30, to a total of some 100 workers. “There are not any people skilled in plastic injection-moulding, but what is even more serious is that we can no longer find even technicians or mechanic fitters we can train on the job,” said Mihael Curescu, deputy chief executive of Schieffer Romania. The Austrian producer has had a plant in Romania in Lugoj, on the Tapiei industrial site, since 2006. To develop its factory, which employs more than 70 people, Schieffer has invested more than 1.3 million euros so far. It got the first 30 employees from the former plastics division of Honeywell, who in turn trained the new employees.