April 24 (SeeNews) - Romania is one of few countries where automation is expected have a slight negative impact upon the size of the workforce in the next two years, recruitment company ManpowerGroup Romania said on Tuesday.
Some 17% of Romanian employers believe that in the next two years automation will lead to a decrease in headcount, according ManpowerGroup’s latest research 'Robots Need Not Apply: Human Solutions in the Skills Revolution'. At the global level, 10% of employers foresee a negative impact on headcount.
Some 14% of Romanian employers believe automation will create new jobs, versus 20% globally.
Consequently, automation is likely to have a slight negative impact on the local market in the near term. Roles that are routine or add less value to customers are under greatest threat of automation, the research showed.
Some 81% of Romanian employers said their headcount will increase or remain flat in the next two years because of automation, which is broadly in line with the 86% employers globally giving the same answer to the ManpowerGroup research.
Looking inside organizations, the impact varies by function, with only 5% of employers believing they will increase the number of their administrative office employees, as digitalization progresses, while 14% forecast decreases. Only 1% of Romanian employers anticipate increases in their human resources function, and 5% anticipate decreases.
More than 1 in 3 employers (36%) believe their manufacturing and production workforce will increase as a result of automation, but 41% believe it will decrease, thus resulting in an overall negative impact of automation in the near term.
The IT function comes on top, as organizations invest in digital skills.
"As technology transforms organizations, skills needs are changing rapidly and companies are struggling to find the talent they need, so the value companies now place on human strengths is increasingly evident," according to ManpowerGroup’s research.
More than 4 in 5 of Romanian companies surveyed say collaboration skills are their most valued soft skill, followed by communication, written and verbal, and problem solving, but finding talent with the right mix of skills is a challenge: employers say organization (43%), communication (42%) and problem solving (40%) are also the hardest skills to find in candidates.
There are some variations between functions in the ranking of the most valued and hardest to find skills. Thus, 93% of IT employers who forecast an increase in headcount say communication is the skill they value most, and also the skill that is hardest to find among candidates.