Alliance ONREA Connects the Central and Eastern European Markets

Prague 1, October 2004 ñ Czech, Polish, Slovak and Hungarian employers experience unique difficulties finding employees for specific positions in their limited national employment pools. Multinational companies also have particular difficulties recruiting qualified people for specific professions in Central and Eastern Europe. ONREA (On Line Recruitment Alliance) provides the solution to these and many other problems. This newly-forged cooperation between the leaders of the Internet employment industries in their respective countries ñ jobs.cz in The Czech Republic, profesia.sk in Slovakia, pracuj.pl in Poland and profession.hu in Hungary ñwill enable employers operating in Central Europe to seamlessly recruit employees from among all four countries. The ONREA employment search engine shall be formally announced, by the alliance members, at a meeting and press conference in Prague, October 1, 2004.

Libor Maly, the General Manager of LMC in The Czech Republic which operates jobs.cz , says the alliance was created to meet the requirements of an ever expanding job market: ÑGlobal companies are expecting global solutions in the recruitment of qualified work power. By joining the EU, the cooperating countries want to facilitate access to the entire region for foreign investors. By expanding our services abroad with the help of this alliance, we will enable work flow and the flexibility of jobs in the Eastern and Central member states of the EU.ì

ÑThe alliance we have created is our answer to European job market changes and the need for job mobility within the newly-enlarged Europe. More and more people are searching for jobs abroad and more and more employers search for foreign employees. The alliance is expected to provide both groups using the international recruitment platform an efficient, quick, cheap and easy-to-use tool. Obviously, the more countries that join the alliance, the more international and useful it becomes. We plan to enlarge the alliance to additional countries in the future,ì said Przemysaw Gacek, General Director of the Polish member of the alliance, pracuj.pl. ÑONREA is the solution to strengthen and further develop existing international cooperation. For example, with The Czech Republic we have many things in common including similar languages and history. ONREA now enables us to expand the benefits of cooperation among 4 countries in the central and eastern European regions and, as is prudent, we will partner with additional European countries,ì said Dalibor Jakus, General Director of profesia.sk in Slovakia.

ONREA is taking the right step in leading the flexible job market, according to The Vice President of The Czech Republic, Martin Jahn: ÑIn understanding the job market these days, we cannot allow ourselves to be limited by individual national borders. The establishment of the ONREA alliance fits perfectly into the mosaic of steps leading to the expansion of the Czech market into the greater world. This effective coalition, which embodies the spirit of cooperation among countries, shows, in addition, that using information technology is a desired and integral part of the modern method of managing and developing human resources.

Cornerstone to the partners establishing this alliance, ONREA plans to contribute to the balancing of the structural disproportions in the job markets of individual localities. It is the increasingly more evident limited reserve of specialists, with needed qualification in certain professions, which is slowing investor intentions to access the Central and Eastern European markets, which will create jobs in regions with the highest unemployment. This has a dramatic impact on economic progress.

Radomil Novak , The Director of an agency for business support and investment voices approval ñ Czech Invest, for the establishment of ONREA: Ñ The establishment of ONREA ñ The On line Recruitment Alliance ñ stands alone in the field of Internet job sites and responds to the tide of change in the incoming foreign investment structure and the increasing sophistication required of key specialists. Employers can now take advantage of a wider choice from a vast collection of experts in any number of proficiencies. The advent of ONREA further creates a significant data source for mapping statistical output trends and the mobility of work power in order to define the qualifying structure for sought workers..ì

Vladimir äpidla, the future Commissar responsible for employment in EU countries sees ONREAís use of information technologies in connecting the supply and demand in the job market an important tool for solving unemployment problems - Ñ Establishment of this international E-recruitment alliance will definitely be a benefit from the perspective of development in our region, but also from a complete European point of view. The Internet job market is a new and very effective phenomenon, which will have significant impact on employment. The Internet will also increase the mobility of work power. I believe that the Internet will make it uniquely possible in the future for socially weaker groups to obtain jobs, for example, people with a changed work ability, women after maternity leave or people over 50 years of age. I am convinced, especially, that knowledge of working with the Internet and access to it may help many people with an easier job search. Additionally, as Internet know-how is a greater search tool itself, this creates another qualification for home-work on a PC with an Internet connection.î

ONREA is an open association of co-equal partners with similar company histories. The companies united in ONREA were founded as local projects of individual business entities, which correctly understood the future meaning and potential of information technology on the unsteady job market in post-communist countries.

The electronic job market soon found purchase in the rich soil here because it was not limited by entrenched and often-stiff recruitment methods and now we belong among the best in the EU. It became an automatic part of the recruitment process of domestic companies and organizations as well as for investors coming to Central and Eastern Europe.

As a Tool for job and employee search, the Internet became an integral source throughout the world very quickly. The first on line job servers in the world started in 1994 and, after ten years, the conversion of the world market to on- line recruitment is estimated at more than 13 billions dollars (according to IDC/Forrester Research). The key data of the 4 companies comprising ONREA illustrate the point that the number of companies using the services of on line job sites is growing every year.