RSS
‘A historic deficit’ of work force in agriculture: it is aged and it will disappear in some years
The agricultural producers speak about ‘a historic deficit’ of work force in the domain, especially qualified workers to manipulate the equipment in the western part of the country estimating that only 50% of the need for people is covered, reason for which some commercial companies cannot grow or hire companies from Hungary to work the land. The producers say that the work force is aged and will disappear in some years, while the vocational schools do not exist.
The chairman of the League of Association of Agricultural Producers of Romania (LAPAR) Laurentiu Baciu stated for News.ro that at present in’ Romania there is a historic deficit of qualified work force, due to the fact there are no vocational schools to train the young people’.
Baciu says that a big problem is due to the fact that there are no people to operate the agricultural equipment, ‘ which delays the execution of the works at the optimum moment, with losses’.
According to the quoted source’ another problem is that the local administrations encourage non-work, by offering social aid’.
‘Practically, the state determine the people not to work, by paying these aids, and the producers look for work force outside the country. We try to bring people from Asian countries, from Indonesia, Pakistan or Philippines. There are cases in Romania, animal farms which employed Asian workers’ added the chairman of Lapar.
In his turn, the chairman of the National Federation PRO AGRO Emil Dumitru stated that ‘ one of the causes of the deficit is the closing down of the agricultural schools’.
‘In Romania there is no school to develop professional vocations. In agriculture, the deficit of work force grew in the latest years. If we speak about the period 2010 – 2015 for which we have data, the number of employees in the domain dropped by 21.5% from over 1,600,000 people to 1,200,000. The farmers in Arad, Timis and Bihor brought overspecialised mechanical technicians from EU member states, and they had to pay salaries much over the Romanian average’ Emil Dumitru said for News.ro.
One of the producers in the west part of the country the Agricultural Unit Curtici which manages 7,600 ha in the Arad county pays its equipment workers with salaries of over 2,000 euro to keep its work force.
The chairman of the Association of Agricultural producers ‘ARAGRA 2008’ Ioan Andru says that in the west part of the country ‘ many farms work with companies from Hungary who come with equipment to work the land of the Romanians’
‘Those who have associations or production farms find agricultural mechanics with much difficulty, which is necessary, so they work with Hungarian companies. We have situations in Arad with farms where they bring children from Germany for the practical work and thus they ensure a part of the work force. In Germany there are still schools, we don’t have any. The issue is so problematic that we couldn’t find any. The young people in the countryside go to work abroad where they work in constructions and they left the old people behind who will retire at a certain moment. In my company, the majority of the employees are over 55 or even over 65’ Andru said.