Bucharest (AFP)

Yellow helmet screwed on the head, about thirty men are busy on a construction site south of Bucharest, exchanging a few words in Vietnamese: faced with a growing shortage of manpower which threatens to seize its economy, Romania unfolds the red carpet to Asian workers.

"My friend, my friend", launches Costel, a Romanian worker to a Vietnamese "friend", in an effort to break the language barrier on this site run by the 4th arrondissement town hall.

Outside of work, the moments of exchange between the two groups are limited: at the cigarette break, the Asians plebiscite an improvised pipe from a PVC pipe; at lunch, they share in a dining room a meal consisting of several dishes prepared by a Vietnamese chef.

"We had money to renovate dozens of public housing but not the necessary manpower," said Mayor Daniel Baluta, who decided to recruit far from Europe's borders. Land of emigration and low birth rate, all countries on the eastern flank of the continent face the same lack of manpower.

Neighboring Hungary plans to grant 75,000 work permits in 2019 to workers outside the European Union, three times more than in 2017. The majority of them continue to come from Ukraine, but more and more be from Vietnam, China, India, Mongolia. The government of the nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, communicates little on this subject while the refusal of immigration is the thread of his policy since 2010.

- Emigrants, immigrants -

Deserted by about four million of its inhabitants, themselves workers emigrated to Western countries with better paying jobs, Romania issued more than 11,000 work permits in the first half of 2019, compared to 10,500 for the whole of 2018. Vietnamese, Moldavians and Sri Lankans were the first beneficiaries.

Most of these hires go through recruitment companies, specialized in the Asian workforce, whose number has exploded.

"At first we were solicited for projects of modest size but for three years, the demand for workers for large projects has increased significantly," says Corina Constantin, director of the Romanian company Multi Professional Solutions.

According to a recent study by the American company Manpower, four out of five Romanian employers are finding it difficult to fill jobs. In Hungary, the lack of arms in the industry sector alone is estimated at between 40,000 and 50,000 people.

"It is impossible to carry out large-scale projects without foreign workers," says Eva Toth of the Hungarian chemical industry union.

For the construction of a polyol plant in Tiszaujvaros, eastern Hungary, one of the largest industrial projects of the moment, MOL, the main Hungarian oil and gas company, plans to employ 2,500 foreign workers, 25% of the workforce, at the height of the activity.

- Mistrust of the unions -

According to the Romanian mayor Daniel Baluta, the 500 or so Vietnamese working on the building site of his district receive the equivalent of 900 euros net per month, one third more than the average salary in Romania.

But trade unionist Dumitru Costin, head of one of the main confederations of the country (BNS), criticizes the "abusive behavior" of many bosses towards immigrants. According to him, the labor inspectors can not check whether the "minimum standards of work" are respected, because it is impossible to communicate directly with the employees.

"When they have traveled thousands of miles to find a job, it is obvious that they will obey without flinching and work overtime unpaid not to be returned to their country," said Mr. Costin.

Zoltan Laszlo, head of the Metallurgical Trade Union (VSZSZ), says Hungarian employees are under pressure from their bosses who "tell them they can easily be replaced" by Ukrainians, Mongolians or Vietnamese.

"We are not against the hiring of foreign workers because otherwise the companies would have only to put the key under the door, says the Hungarian trade unionist Eva Toth, but if the local employees were better paid, they would not leave the country. "

© 2019 AFP