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Like many European twenty-somethings looking for work, Carmen faced a decision: a secure job with an immediate payoff, or delayed gratification with further training with hopes for a better job. In her hometown in western Romania, the main industry is an automotive parts factory, the Delphi Packard Corporation, which employs thousands from the town and surrounding areas. Carmen Pragai had to decide whether to pursue work on the factory floor or in the office support department. Line work is “hard, manual labor” Carmen explains. Plus, the difference in pay is like night and day – where the sun shines on those with e-skills.
Knowing her limitations and opportunities, Carmen enrolled in an intensive ICT training program offered by a local NGO in her hometown of Sannicolau Mare. Supported by a national network of telecenters under the guidance of EOS – Educating for an Open Society – the local, job-focused ICT training program kept Carmen in classes for five months. When she completed the eight training modules, she applied to Delphi and was hired by the factory’s office support department as a quality control professional.
Feeding economic growth
Sannicolau Mare has been both blessed and challenged by the economic prosperity of the past few years. New factory and service jobs have multiplied; an accompanying challenge is a shortage of skilled workers. Addressing this labor imbalance is important for the Delphi factory to demonstrate to investors that it is workable and profitable, feeding future expansion and support. The labor shortage is particularly acute because other, smaller growing businesses in the Sannicolau community also need workers with ICT fluency.
To meet the needs of industry and up-skill the current workforce, the local EOS partner has developed a network of ICT training programs that target different audiences. These computer classrooms are spread across the local learning community: a small lab in a kindergarten, a large lab at the local high school, another large lab in a neighboring school serving Roma youth, and a fourth lab in the main telecentre office.
Carmen studied in the main Sannicolau telecentre. Five months of coursework were spread out over most of a year, covering Microsoft Word and Excel, as well as the more advanced database skills needed for programs like Access. Carmen was fortunate to have the good graces of her parents who paid her tuition and enabled her to dedicate her time to learning. But with the support of EOS, and its grant of Microsoft Unlimited Potential Community Learning curriculum, the training programs are also affordable for others. Carmen’s investment paid off, and she is now earning nearly twice what she would have made on the Delphi factory floor, and she has health insurance, a pension, eligibility for higher bonuses, and the possibility of promotion.
The benefits are not only for Carmen, but for Delphi too. An Austria-based firm, the automotive parts factory is one of two in the region operating at full capacity with three round-the-clock shifts of thousands of local workers. The Delphi Romania country director, Cristian Gulicska, explains that ICT training is essential to the factories’ continued success. During a recent factory tour, Cristian pointed out that some positions on the floor require ICT skills – more than sixty line positions use computer work stations to monitor the precision of the assembly process. With three shifts each day, that makes nearly two hundred line workers in need of advanced e-skills, in addition to one thousand office staff.
“Does Delphi have an IT deficit?” asked a CIS researcher. “Yes,” Cristian admitted. A young and highly motivated manager, Cristian is speaking not only of the ICT needs at the pair of current factories, but also of his plans for a third. He must keep the first two operating at full speed and optimal efficiency, while he and the Austrian head office negotiate the logistics and local workforce readiness required to build a third factory.
Multiple access points, multiple student needs
The smart, strategic decision to co-locate the EOS-supported computer lab in the Sannicolau high school provides an important link to formal education. Bogdan Suvar, who participated in the training, was hired to design a human resources database for Delphi during the summer after his junior year. The training both built his skills and raised his visibility. Cristian, the factory director, was so pleased with the work that he offered Bogdan a full time position after graduation.
During the winter visit to the factory, young Bogdan – now a high school senior entering his final semester – met up with his old boss Cristian in the factory lobby. The director called out to Bogdan, “when are you going to some back to work for me?” Young Bogdan replied with a curious mix of sheepish confidence, “not for four more years, I’m off to university next.”
A growing number of options
But Delphi factory jobs are not for every Romanian youth. Florin Paun, a young man in his twenties, had left home to try his luck in the job market in Italy. After a year he returned to Sannicolau. Florin enrolled in the same eight-module training course as Carmen. Soon after graduating, he too found work: as a PC operator and administrator at a local Net Club, the Sannicolau version of a cyber café. He has been working there for three months now and is happy with his lot. Asked whether he would like to try his luck at the Delphi factory, Florin smiled with a quick “no.” He likes the freedom of working in a cyber café, and his role helping others with their computer skills. With the growing attractions and possibilities of the worldwide web – social networks, gaming, and the hunt for jobs – graduates like Florin can act as private sector gatekeepers and guides for the broader community. The match is a good one for the town’s cyber needs: Florin is one of at least three young ICT graduates to find work in the local Net Clubs in the first year of the training program.
Bogdan, Carmen, and Florin represent three types of ICT graduates in Sannicolau. The training programs supported there by EOS are new, having begun under the leadership of local NGO director Laura Rusu in early 2007. The programs teach fundamentals, as well as advanced training, such as Visual Basic, which was essential for Bogdan to build the Delphi database. In their first year, 117 have graduated, and Laura expects more young people to follow the paths of these three. Because of the diverse reach of the training – from kindergartens to factory-sponsored job training – the programs are able to target different pockets of learners, and are attempting to adapt to the rapidly changing needs of Sannicolau. In this town, ICT skills are part of growing prosperity.
The town Vice Mayor, Denis Groca, praises the work of the training programs, and how they contribute to the fast growth of Sannicolau. “We have the lowest unemployment rate in Romania,” Vice Mayor Groca says, explaining that Sannicolau has 12,000 jobs, but only 14,000 inhabitants; people come from fifty kilometers away to work. With such an explosion of economic development, Groca highlights that it is important to make sure that individuals are not only getting work, but also keeping work. Dana, one of Laura Rusu’s trainers, says it’s a matter of necessity: “with the economic growth, we have to learn how to keep up.”
Recommended citation
West, M. (2008). Meeting industry needs: Youth e-skills filling labor gaps in high-growth Romanian regions. Seattle: Technology & Social Change Group, University of Washington Information School.