While companies in the field of outsourcing cannot complain about the lack of personnel, other branches of the economy are just choking. The need for waiters, cooks and bartenders in the sphere of tourism gives hoteliers goose bumps. The financial side of the problem appears to be crucial and is one of the reasons many professionals flee this country.
Just in the capital city of Sofia there are 40 needed anesthesiologists, not to mention the lack of physicians in other specialties and nurses. The problem with the lack of trained professionals has long been on the public agenda, but so far there are no adequate measures for solving it.
Web sites are full of job offers from sea resorts. Hotels on the northern Black Sea coast have been looking for about 2000 people, while employment offices have already exhausted their ability to provide appropriate professionals. Top Bulgarian chefs have chosen seasonal work in Germany, where the starting salary is between 2,000 and 2,500 euros. Such employees are needed in Spain, Italy, UK. Restaurants have difficulties finding assistant cooks too. In luxury restaurants owners offer a salary of 1,000 euro for a chef who knows the intricacies of Mediterranean, Arabic and Indian cuisine. Bulgarian bartenders and hotel maids have chosen to work in Greece, where salaries are also higher. If Bulgarian hoteliers slightly loosened the purse strings, qualified personnel would have remained to work in their native country. Hotel owners, however, prefer using labor force from Moldova and Romania, although our northern neighbors frown on Bulgarian wages. Bulgarian tourism colleges call for introducing 6-month work visas for third country students who want to work in Bulgarian sea resorts. There are job offers for child animators offering 300 euro a month and requiring 3 fluent languages. There are a great number of beautiful Bulgarian girls, but those of them speaking English, German and Russian are few. Lifeguards have also become part of the category of rare birds as not many agree to work for 400 euro a month when payment abroad is much higher.
If we speak about medics, the trend of Bulgarian doctors looking for employment in other countries remains strong. French labor agencies are looking for cardiologists, anesthetists, physiotherapists, endocrinologists and pediatricians. Cardiologists receive annual salary of 70,000 -100,000 euros and medics claim that nine out of ten young doctors leave the country immediately after graduation. According to experts, Bulgaria will feel the burden of this problem in full force in the next 5-6 years. German and UK companies hire Bulgarian nurses, while Dutch and Spanish companies prefer Bulgarian truck drivers. "Unfortunately highly-qualified personnel prefer working abroad," a Bulgarian employer complained during a recent job fair.
English version: Alexander Markov
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