The National Statistical Institute confirmed in recent days that Bulgaria officially may be regarded as in recession, meeting the classic definition of negative growth in two successive quarters.

At the same time, it emerged that the private sector had shed an estimated more than 34 000 jobs in the first quarter of 2009.

Against this background, separate statistics confirmed again that Bulgaria has the lowest salaries in the European Union, supposedly an average 524 leva a month in the private sector.

There was some truth in the reaction to the last set of figures by Labour and Social Policy Minister Emilia Maslarova, who said that the salary average should not be examined in isolation from the fact that cost of living is also lower than the EU average. More tellingly, Maslarova said that productivity is also much lower than the EU average, an argument that militates against increased salaries, even were economic conditions closer to normal.

In The Sofia Echo special feature on recruitment, one interviewee says that companies under stress should use dismissals as a last resort, not as a first resort, but yet it should be pointed out that many companies would have no other area in which to cut back.

Clearly, now is the time not only for increased productivity, as difficult as that may be to accept with diminished staffing levels, but also for greater efficiency, from which the private sector may, in the end, emerge much stronger.