Opening a business services or GBS center in Romania

Romania hosts more than 1,000 service centers and over 280,000 business services employees, making it one of the most developed markets in Central and Eastern Europe. The sector generated €35.5 billion in gross value added in 2025, close to 10% of the country's total, and has grown at an average of 14% a year over the last decade. For finance and accounting, customer operations, IT outsourcing and HR services delivered in multiple European languages, it is one of the strongest options in the region. The main things to plan for are retention in the large hubs, where attrition sits at the top of the national 8 to 15% range, and the limited size of the Nordic, Dutch, Czech, Slovak and Polish language pools.

Eighteen are realistically recruitable: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Hungarian, Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Arabic, Greek, Dutch, Czech, Slovak, Polish and the Nordic languages. They fall into three tiers. English, French, Italian and Spanish support teams of 100 to 120 people a year in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iași and Timișoara. German supports up to 50 a year in Bucharest and 20 to 30 in Iași, Timișoara, Brașov and Sibiu. Nordic, Dutch, Czech, Slovak and Polish are niche: teams larger than ten a year are difficult anywhere except Bucharest.

German is taught widely and supported by a historical German community of about 36,000 people, concentrated in Transylvania and Banat. Bucharest has the largest recruitable pool, with more than 6,400 entry-level speakers, and supports teams of up to 50 a year. Cluj-Napoca has a substantial pool but heavy competition from better-paid technology roles. Brașov, Sibiu, Timișoara and Iași each support 20 to 30 hires a year, and Sibiu in particular has a long tradition of German-speaking service delivery. Târgu Mureș and Mediaș are credible secondary options.

Nordic languages, Dutch, Czech, Slovak and Polish. In Bucharest, the largest market, the entry-level pools are roughly 150 for Nordic languages, 100 for Dutch, 101 for Polish, 34 for Czech and 16 for Slovak, with even smaller alternate pools. Teams above ten people a year in these languages are difficult, and they are usually built through targeted search, relocation and bilingual profiles rather than through advertising. We delivered a 25-person multilingual support team covering Dutch, Czech and Slovak in two months, which is the kind of approach these languages require.

Language premiums are paid as a lump sum on top of base salary and scale with scarcity. In gross annual terms they run at roughly €1,600 to €2,900 for Italian, Spanish and Portuguese; €2,200 to €3,200 for German and French; €2,200 to €3,600 for Czech, Slovak, Hungarian and Russian; €2,400 to €4,100 for Polish, Dutch and Nordic languages; €3,600 to €4,400 for Turkish; €3,800 to €4,800 for Greek; and €4,400 to €4,800 for Arabic. Premiums reach the top of the range in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara and Iași, and the bottom in the smaller cities.

Bucharest for scale, language variety and fast ramp-ups, accepting the highest salaries and the top of the attrition range. Cluj-Napoca for a large, more stable pool, strong finance and accounting and the country's deepest Hungarian community. Iași and Timișoara for contact center and ITO volume at lower cost. Brașov and Sibiu for German-speaking teams and better retention. Oradea, Galați, Ploiești and Constanța for cost-efficient English-language operations with far less competition, provided the volume is moderate and office space is confirmed early.

Attrition has been falling and is now between 8% and 15% in business services, and at about 16% in IT services. Within that range, the largest hubs sit at the top and the smaller cities at the bottom, so a second-tier location usually buys noticeably more continuity. Candidates changing jobs typically expect a package increase of about 30%, which is why retention planning matters more than the initial offer.

For English-language operations, 100 to 120 people a year is realistic in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iași and Timișoara, and 70 to 90 in Brașov, Ploiești and Constanța. For French, Italian and Spanish, similar volumes are possible in the four large hubs. For German, plan for up to 50 a year in Bucharest. From our own delivery: a 60-person GBS center including its five-person executive team in five months, 450 hires over 24 months for a telecom group's network operations and customer support center in five languages, and 50 roles in six months across eight functions and seven languages.

Finance and accounting is the classic core: accounts payable, accounts receivable, general ledger, record-to-report and order-to-cash. Around it sit procurement and master data, customer operations and technical support, IT outsourcing and service desk, HR services and payroll, and increasingly higher-value work such as financial planning and analysis, internal audit, tax, data and process automation. The national employed pool is split roughly 38% IT services, 37% customer operations, 17% finance and accounting and 8% HR.

Yes, though the argument has shifted. Romania combines competitive operating costs with one of the largest talent pools in Central and Eastern Europe, about 8.3 million people in the labour force, second only to Poland, and ranks second in the region for graduate numbers. Cost of living is moderate outside the two largest cities, which keeps salary pressure lower there. The sector's specific tax incentives have been withdrawn, so the case now rests on talent depth, language capability and productivity rather than on labour arbitrage alone.

Not by advertising. We map the specific communities, the alumni of the relevant language faculties, professionals who studied or worked abroad, and bilingual candidates already employed in other centers, and we approach them individually. We also work with relocation from neighbouring counties and countries where it makes sense: Hungarian from Transylvania, Ukrainian and Russian from the east, Turkish from Constanța, German from the Transylvanian cities.

That is usually where a project starts. We map the talent for your exact mix of functions and languages across the cities you are considering: installed pools, entry-level pipeline, realistic one-year scalability, the employers you would compete with, salary and language premium levels, and attrition. You get a shortlist of viable cities and a hiring plan before any recruitment begins.