„The balance of power between IT employers and employees is starting to change,’ says Alexandru Costin, the general manager of Adobe Systems Romania, who has grown accustomed, like many managers in the field, with a great negotiating power of employees in terms of employment conditions and salary package over the last few years. ”Now both the employer and the future employee have a say in the employment contract.

The dictatorship of the demanding candidate seems set to end,” Costin continues. Adobe Romania’s boss wants to suggest that the market will normalise this year, given the difficult economic situation. Until now, many companies have had to accept inexperienced people and pay to train them or attract specialists by putting sizeable salary packages and a wide range of benefits on the table. On the other hand, the lack of sufficient human resources allowed IT specialists to become some kind of ”mercenaries” willing to frequently change their job in exchange for greater and greater rewards, as Radu Georgescu, Gecad chairman said not so long ago.

”Salaries in the IT industry have had the highest growth of recent years, and Romania is seeing one of the widest gaps between the average salary in the IT sector and the average salary in the economy,” says Liviu Dan Dragan, general manager of TotalSoft and chairman of the Association of Software Industry Business Owners (ANIS) – although compared with the salaries in most European countries, the income level in the IT industry is lower in Romania. A programmer with a three to five years of experience, who works for a software company in Bucharest earns an average of 1,100 euros per month, while programmers in the rest of the country earn around 850 euros, reveals a survey conducted by GhidulSalariilor.ro about salaries in the IT industry last year.