BRUSSELS, May 3. /TASS/. Some of European Union defense companies are struggling to recruit enough employees and seeking to ease rules restricting night shifts, the Brussels-based news website EURACTIVE said on Wednesday.

They are facing staff shortages just as the European Commission released a 1.5-billion-euro plan to militarize EU economy, according to the report.

"The European Commission presented on Wednesday (3 May) its proposal for the Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP) meant to incentivize Europe’s defense industry to invest in ramping up production capacity, be it supply chain components, machines, or personnel. The plan has the target for the defense industry to produce one million shells in 12 months," the news website said.

"Defense companies, including the biggest ones, are struggling to recruit personnel to work in their factories," two industry officials told EURACTIV.

There’s a lack of engineers and manual labor jobs, they said.

Defense industry officials also said that in order to hire more staff and invest in the militarization of EU economy, they need to be sure that demand for weapons and ammunition will remain strong after the conflict in Ukraine ended.

Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said, as he presented the plan in Brussels on Wednesday, that the European Commission is aware of the challenges and was going to invest in overcoming them. The European Commission proposes to relax labor rules to allow night shifts at defense companies. The measure, however, wouldn’t solve the issue of staff shortages completely.