In order to ‘bring order’ to the employment of workers from third countries in Croatia, the Ministry of the Interior will tighten the conditions for issuing work permits, increase supervision of employers who employ these workers and agencies that mediate in this process, and there will be stricter controls on the qualifications of foreign workers. In Croatia, only during the past year, 172,499 permits for residence and work for citizens of third countries were issued, therefore state bodies, union representatives, and employers are working on changes to the regulations of the Aliens Act.
To obtain a positive opinion from the Croatian Employment Service on the issuance of work permits for foreigners, the Ministry of the Interior proposes that employers meet additional conditions. For example, the working conditions offered by companies will be checked, and the number of applications for permits per employer will be limited (depending on the size and needs of the company). There is also a step further with the verification of employer debts – from now on, settled obligations based on all public levies will be checked (previously, the condition was that employers had no debts based on income tax and contributions for mandatory insurance). One of the proposed conditions is a minimum turnover of companies of 10,000 euros per month for six months and 15,000 euros turnover for individuals. Additionally, a condition would be that employers have one domestic worker employed full-time for at least one year (previously it was at least six months).
Disarray among agencies
However, in addition to wanting to protect foreign workers and provide them with safe jobs, the Ministry of the Interior is trying to ensure a workforce for employers who really need it, which are most often employers from the construction, tourism, hospitality, industry, transport, and trade sectors. Namely, as we learn from informed sources, the number of agencies for the employment of foreign workers has exploded in Croatia in recent years – currently, there are about 600 according to some estimates.
Unfortunately, many of them do not operate fairly. Employers hire them and pay them to bring foreign workers, only to end up being deceived because the workers do not arrive at the agreed workplace but take advantage of entering Schengen and go to other European countries. Ultimately, business suffers the most; there have been cases where domestic hoteliers could not open a restaurant at the beginning of the tourist season due to such situations with workers. For this reason, additional controls are very important, believes Nataša Kačar, director of the employment agency Gate2Solutions and the portal Jobs in Tourism, who emphasizes that employers must check which agencies they work with.
– Such agencies survive for a year and then disappear, but they create chaos among other agencies. This needs to be addressed. We who do this also want protection because they create chaos in the market – says Kačar.
The same problem is testified by Marko Kisić, sales manager at the employment agency Humble Hunters, emphasizing that with stricter controls, many such agencies will disappear.
– There will be a closure of a large number of these agencies because the vast majority of them will not be able to meet the new conditions – said Kisić, who welcomes another proposal from the Ministry of the Interior, which is the extension of the validity of work permits from one to three years and seasonal permits from six to nine months.
Employers against additional administration
This proposal is also supported by the Croatian Employers’ Association, which worked with the Ministry of the Interior on the new Aliens Act. As stated by Irena Weber, director of HUP, the extension of the duration of work permits, which they hope will be realized by summer, will relieve the system of issuing work permits.
– We welcome steps that should result in limiting the abuse of the system itself and illegal work. A few years ago, we already supported limiting the issuance of permits to agencies for importing labor, especially those that were newly established, as this resulted in a huge number of new agencies that uncontrollably import labor, which has negative consequences for the labor market itself – added Weber.
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However, HUP opposes the limitation of issuing work permits within one year per employer, as well as the introduction of a surety for entrepreneurs.
– We believe that the introduction of a surety that the employer would have to provide, which would be activated if the worker does not start working at that workplace or if the employer does not hire or temporarily dismiss him, is an additional administrative burden. It often happens that the employer has no influence over the worker coming from a third country and receiving a work permit; however, he either does not show up or leaves for other countries after two or three days. No employer can control this and we believe it is neither fair nor feasible for the surety to be activated in such cases. On one hand, we understand the intentions of the legislator, but we believe that such cases should be resolved through direct inspection activities, while other employers, and there are a large majority of them, should be maximally relieved administratively and allowed to more easily access the labor force that is truly lacking – said Weber.
