Bulgaria is in need of young IT specialists and engineers to support the growth of its economy, it emerged at this year’s Careers Forum, held on March 16.

The event, organised by the JobTiger agency, the State Administration Ministry and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), this year has 90 participants offering summer internships, one- and three-year training programmes, and opportunities to apply directly for jobs.

Potential employers include firms operating in construction, information technology, mobile telecommunications, banking and services, among other fields. Forum sessions were held in Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, and Rousse.

Careers 2006 showed that engineers and computer specialists with knowledge of foreign languages were the most sought-after on the labour market. JobTiger said it was the first time in the event’s six-year history they were overwhelmed by engineering and software companies looking for employees.

The companies are not even offering training programmes but are ready to appoint the candidates immediately and train them on the job. The reason is in the serious influx of foreign businesses in Bulgaria, which has left the labour market starving for professionals. Another factor is the lower number of young people graduating from technical universities.

Human resource (HR) experts say that no person with technical education, with knowledge of English or French, could stay unemployed in Bulgaria currently. The same applies to all kinds of IT professionals, where job vacancies exceed candidates.

Several hi-tech companies announced in the past several months plans to relocate part of their production or research and development to Bulgaria.

Hewlett-Packard had started working on opening a global service centre in Bulgaria this year providing support such as help desks to clients in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Ajilon and Sitel, HP’s partners in the local project, were both accepting resumes from job prospects at Careers 2006.