« A New Survey on Migration
Sofia – Old is Not Enough…..But It Is a Start ! »

Bulgarian National Migration Policy Tightens as Crisis Bites

bg_map

The migration policy of national governments is decisive for what cities can and cannot do with their open city strategy. This is particularly true for highly centralized systems such as that of Bulgaria. So when the global crisis set in, it was only a question of time before the government decided to tighten its policy. The proposals being currently discussed include such measures as an increase from 15 to 30 days of advertising for a job opening before a non-EU national may be considered for the position. Further, rather than advertising locally labour bureaus will be required to do so nationally in the hope that another Bulgarian from a distant city might want to move and apply for the job. More worryingly, a ‘labour mediator’ will be present at interviews to make sure that the qualities of the Bulgarian applicant are not ‘underrated’. If your firm is in a region and branch which exceed by 0.5% the average unemployment, your request for hiring a non-EU national might actually be turned down. Moreover, the same is likely to happen if a company has made significant redundancies in the last six months. A work permit may be extended to one year only if that person is employed at a site of ‘national importance’, i.e. motorways, large infrastructure projects, etc.

 

The number of people involved is not enormous, only 1100 non-EU nationals have received work permits since the start of the year. These are mainly Turkish and Russian employees, but curiously, given the usual concentration of Chinese nationals in the big cities, one Chinese citizen has applied for the job of a tractor operator. I was unable to find out whether he/she actually got the job.

Tags: , ,

This entry was posted on Monday, September 14th, 2009 at 08:53 and is filed under Leadership and governance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Bulgarian National Migration Policy Tightens as Crisis Bites”

  1. Randy Nichols Says:
    September 14th, 2009 at 09:01

    Hi there,

    I looked over your blog and it looks really good. Do you ever do link exchanges on your blog roll? If you do, I’d like to exchange links with you.

    Let me know if you’re interested.

    Thanks..

  2. vshopov Says:
    September 14th, 2009 at 09:10

    Hi, glad you like it. I have not done link exchanges yet but will let you know when I begin to.

    Best regards, Vladimir

  3. beetroot juice Says:
    September 15th, 2009 at 01:46

    i like all of your info ,
    will bump me if you anger some more news all round this post
    Cordialy

Leave a Reply

OPENCities is a British Council project in partnership with cities around the world. The British Council is the United Kingdom's international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. Our purpose is to build mutually beneficial relationships between people in the UK and other countries and to increase appreciation of the UK's creative ideas and achievements. We are registered in England as a charity.