Research by Manpower, the leading world consultants on employee training and testing, found out that 86% of business in Bulgaria are having serious trouble finding good employees. According to Bulgarian companies, the reasons for the problem are mainly the lack of qualified candidates, especially in cities other than Sofia, lack of motivation among workers, or their unrealistic expectations, and the dynamics of the market.

Manpower surveyed 300 small, medium and large businesses in Bulgaria between July and August. The research aimed at discovering which professions are mostly sought by employers, who is responsible for approving candidates in a company, and in which cases do companies choose to use the services of a hiring agency.

When asked “How do you cope with the long absence from work of one of your employees?”, just 34% of companies say they would hire someone to fill in temporary. The so-called “temporary staffing”, very wide-spread in Western countries, is still rare in Bulgaria, due to lack of regulations on one hand, and on the other, to the fact that people are reluctant to take up temporary jobs because they prefer something more secure.

The research also found out that businesses in Bulgaria are currently using all possible channels to attract workers – print advertisements (20%), on-line job search engines (19%), unemployment office (20%), or through recommendations by people (18%). Companies are also actively using other means such as university career centers, internship programs, head-hunting methods, municipal organizations etc.

Most of the surveyed companies (77%) said they had an HR department or an HR expert, which proves the understanding for the need of special methods when hiring and evaluating employees. Despite that, 82% of companies said they use employment agencies as mediators. These companies said their managers found it impossible to cope by themselves. They also said the outsourcing of this activity saves them time and additional efforts, and also guarantees to meet their requirements.

Businesses mainly seek employment agencies when they need employees with special qualifications (54%), when they try to attract employees from competing companies (31%), or when they need to find someone for a position outside their city.