What salary expectations do Romanians have depending on the field of activity

When it comes to hiring, candidates’ salary expectations are, on average, 30% – 40% higher than employers’ offers. IT is the field that has the highest salaries, but also the most demanding candidates. On average, the average net salary requested at the industry level is 9,000 lei, while the national average net salary recorded by IT specialists is 6,100 lei, according to data from Salario, a salary comparator. However, the largest gap between the salaries offered by employers and those that candidates believe they should receive is registered in the naval – aeronautical sector (+60% versus the average offered in the market) and real estate (+55% versus the average offered in the market).

“Although, in the last year, salaries have increased in most fields of activity, there is still a rather deep chasm between the way employers and candidates relate to salaries. At the moment, at the level of the entire market, the average of the differences between expectations and offered salaries is somewhere around 40%, but this percentage will surely decrease once the salary market is completely transparent and candidates know how much they can earn right from the job announcement. They will practically have their own salary index for jobs and fields, anytime, at their fingertips”, says Bogdan Badea, CEO of eJobs Romania.

The fields where the salaries offered are closest to expectations are sales (with a 29% difference), administrative (31.5%), human resources (25%), pharma (28%), public relations (25%) or crewing / casino (30%). For each of these sectors, the general picture looks like this: the national average net salary expectations of sales employees is 5,000 lei, while the average net salary received is 3,850 lei; 5,000 lei versus 3,800 in administrative, 5,000 versus 4,000 in human resources and public relations, 5,000 lei versus 3,900 in pharmacy, 5,500 lei versus 4,200 lei in crewing / casino.

On the other hand, there are fields such as banking, marketing, architecture, real estate, naval / aeronautical or merchandising, where candidates have expectations, on average, 50% – 60% higher than the amounts that companies offer when hiring. Specifically, the averages for each field reach 6,000 lei, net, per month, for banking, marketing and architecture, 4,500 lei for merchandising and 7,000 for naval / aeronautical.

“There are also areas where there is a shortage of staff, and candidates know this and, as a result, have raised their salary expectations. We are talking here, for example, about construction, where the average net salary, at the national level, that the candidates think they should receive is 7,000 lei net, per month; agriculture (6,000 lei, per month), tourism (4,500 lei, per month) or car / equipment (6,500 lei, per month)”, adds Bogdan Badea.

Distributed by career level, the smallest gap between actual and desired earnings is in the segment of mid-level candidates (2 – 5 years of experience). If the average net salary, at the national level and for all fields of activity, is 4,000 lei, the level of expectations of the candidates does not exceed the threshold of 5,500 lei. In the case of seniors (over 5 years of experience), the difference is from 5,000 to 7,000 lei, while for the entry level category we are talking about expectations of 4,500 lei and a national average of received salaries of 3,000 lei.