Maids and waiters from Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, India await hoteliers along our Black Sea coast. In the resort “Albena” they hired people from even more exotic destinations such as Bali and Sri Lanka.
The hunger for personnel on the Southern Black Sea coast alone is for over 25,000 people. Due to bureaucratic obstacles, however, the import of labor is very difficult, and already now the tourism industry sees a very difficult summer season – not because of a lack of tourists, but because of a shortage of service personnel. There is a shortage of labor and businesses are looking for foreign workers, especially from third countries, the Acting Minister of Tourism Evtim Miloshev also admitted. He was categorical that there is no danger of foreign workers displacing Bulgarians and taking away their jobs. Importing labor is necessary simply because we do not have people to fill the open positions. According to our legislation, in industrial enterprises up to 30% of the list composition can be “imported”, for the field of agriculture and tourism there is no limit. Another obstacle for employers is that in order to hire labor from third countries, they must not have obligations to the state.
Bosses are obliged to pay their foreign workers a salary comparable to their Bulgarian colleagues, as well as transport costs plus accommodation. For the field of tourism, it is necessary that three meals a day are paid for by the employer. Third-party recruitment agencies, on the other hand, advertise that they can bring in staff from as far away as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Moldova, Serbia and The Philippines.
A bill for changes to the Law on Foreigners in Bulgaria has been submitted to the National Assembly, and the Acting Minister of Tourism hopes that the deputies will accept it in the short time left in the current parliament. The changes will enable the short-term 90-day work visas of third-country nationals to be renewed without the workers having to leave the country. “There are also rules that are not only national, but also European. You can’t just open the borders, because then it becomes a legal migration channel. National security must be taken into account, the fact that we are a European country and are part of the Schengen area, albeit partially,” added the minister.
