While the global tech market is hiring at an accelerating pace, Romania is moving in the opposite direction. Data from the Experis Tech Talent Outlook report for Q3 2026 shows a net employment intention in Romania's technology sector of -11%, one of the weakest readings among the 42 countries included in the study. The global figure stands at +35%. That gap is not an abstract statistic: it means that while employers in other markets are putting serious money on the table for tech talent, in Romania more companies are cutting headcount than hiring.

The report, produced under the ManpowerGroup umbrella, is based on a sample of 4,497 employers in tech services and IT. The methodology is straightforward: the percentage of companies announcing workforce reductions is subtracted from the percentage announcing new hires. A negative result for Romania signals contraction.

Romania and Slovakia at the very bottom of the global ranking

At -11%, Romania sits last in the global ranking of tech hiring intentions, alongside Slovakia (-10%). It is the only region in the report where layoffs, not growth, are the dominant trend.

For context, here is how the rest of the world looks in the same quarter:

Puerto Rico: +68%, up 45 points year-on-year, global leader.

Brazil: +53%.

United Kingdom: +51%, top performer in the Europe/Middle East region.

Vietnam: +50%.

USA and India: +47%.

Israel: +42%.

Czech Republic: +40%, up 27 points quarter-on-quarter.

China: +39%.

Australia: +33%.

In the Americas, the only market with a negative reading is Panama (-1%). In Asia-Pacific, the weakest result is Hong Kong (-10%). Romania therefore compares most closely with markets in structural decline, not with its Central European neighbours. The Czech Republic, which shares many characteristics with Romania as an IT outsourcing hub, leads by more than 50 percentage points.

At the global level, the headline indicator dropped seven points versus the previous quarter and one point year-on-year. The worldwide trend is not one of outright expansion but of recalibration: 50% of surveyed employers plan to hire, 15% anticipate workforce reductions, and 33% expect headcount to remain stable.

What employers want from those still in the game

The report clearly identifies the skills that tech employers are looking for right now. The focus has shifted away from classic tech stacks, the priority is AI.

The most sought-after technical competencies are:

AI modelling and application development: cited by 34% of employers.

Foundational AI knowledge: 30%.

Traditional IT and data skills: 29%.

On the soft-skills side, communication, collaboration and teamwork lead with 41%, followed by professionalism and work ethic (37%) and adaptability and willingness to learn (34%). The combination of AI competencies plus adaptability is the dominant signal in the data.

Kye Mitchell, President of Experis USA, summed up the logic behind these numbers: "Talent has become the limiting factor in technology transformation. The organisations that will succeed in the age of artificial intelligence are not necessarily those that invest the most in technology; they will be the ones that attract, recruit and develop talent faster than their competitors."

For employees and candidates in Romania's IT sector

If you work in tech in Romania, or are looking for your first role in the field, a reading of -11% does not mean the market is closing. It means it is repositioning. Here are concrete steps you can take right now:

Check where you stand on salary. In a contracting market, pressure to accept below-market offers increases. Compare your salary with peers in the same role and seniority bracket before you negotiate or accept a new position, so you don't start from a flawed baseline.

Invest in AI, not just in frameworks. The report is unambiguous: AI modelling and AI application development are the most in-demand skills globally. The Czech Republic jumped 27 points in a single quarter because employers there are actively buying exactly this profile. If you have two quarters of bandwidth available between projects or between roles, applied AI courses are the highest-visibility skill investment you can make today.

Expand your geographic radar. Romania posts -11%. The Czech Republic posts +40%. The UK posts +51%. Many companies in those markets hire remotely or are actively relocating Eastern European engineers. That doesn't mean you have to leave, but it does mean you shouldn't limit yourself to local offers when you're negotiating.

Don't underestimate soft skills. In a tighter market, employers filter more rigorously. Communication and adaptability top the requirements list alongside technical competencies. A strong technical profile that cannot integrate quickly into a distributed team loses ground to a less senior but more versatile candidate.

For HR teams and decision-makers in tech companies

The Experis data describes the context you are operating in, but more importantly, it describes what your regional competitors are doing. A few implications worth thinking through for the coming quarters:

Employer reputation matters twice as much in a contracting market. When employers cut roles, the employees who remain watch more closely, they look at reviews, at how the company communicates restructuring, and at how departing colleagues are treated. The reputation you build now determines who will apply when the market reopens. Undelucram.ro publishes verified employee reviews every month that document exactly what these moments look like from the inside.

Internal upskilling is the most common global strategy. 95% of surveyed employers combine multiple strategies to address the talent shortage. The most frequently cited are: reskilling and developing existing staff (30%), greater workplace flexibility (24%), and pay increases (22%). If you are cutting roles now, the people who remain will need to do more. An internal reskilling programme costs orders of magnitude less than an external recruitment round when the market reopens.

Recalibrate your salary benchmarks. In a contracting market, internal pressure is to freeze salaries. The risk: when the Czech Republic, Poland or the UK come in with remote offers for your senior engineers, departures will be driven not by sentiment but by hard numbers. Check your positioning against the market for key roles, not just against your own data from last year.

Sharpen your recruitment funnel around AI skills. If the filter in previous years was experience with a particular tech stack, it is now shifting toward the ability to work with AI tools. Revisit your job descriptions and interview scorecards to capture exactly that, otherwise you will be paying for profiles that will no longer be relevant in 18 months.

A market that is recalibrating, not disappearing

Kye Mitchell also noted that "the Q3 data reflects a technology labour market that is evolving deliberately rather than regressing, with global hiring intentions remaining virtually unchanged from a year ago." The framing matters. Globally, we are not talking about collapse, we are talking about demand shifting toward new skill sets.

Romania's problem is not that the global trend is negative (it isn't), but that the local sector is failing to catch the wave. The consolidation of regional outsourcing capacity in other markets, the pressure of AI on execution-layer roles, and inertia around upskilling are combining into an outcome that no electoral cycle or rhetoric about "regional hubs" will fix. It will be resolved by individual decisions, employees choosing to build new skills, companies choosing to invest in reskilling, made over the next four quarters.

The -11% figure is a signal, not a verdict. But it is a signal worth acting on now, not in a year's time.