Romanian Govt Reduces No Of Work Permits For Foreigners

For 2010, the Government approved a number of 8,000 work permits, issuing 2,102 work authorizations. Next year, foreigners will be issued up to 5,500 permits, including 4,000 authorizations for permanent workers (vs. 5,500 in 2010), 600 for temporary delegates (vs. 1,000), 200 for seasonal workers (vs. 400 in 2010), 100 nominal authorizations, 100 permits for interns (vs. 200), 300 permits for sportspeople (vs. 500) and 200 for trans-borders employees (vs. 300).

The 5,500 potential foreign employees would account for 0.12% of the total number of employees in Romania's economy.

The Government argues this decision is necessary to ensure the workforce for certain activities or professions that cannot be filled by Romanian workers because of their "massive migration" abroad, to prevent illegal employment and due to the need to cap the number of temporary workers, because of the risk of "social dumping."

Should requests for work authorizations exceed the set cap, more can be added by the Government, according to a draft decision.

Data of the Romanian Immigration Office says that, on September 30, 2010, there were 59,358 foreigners living legally in Romania, of whom 49,282 residing temporarily and 10,076 permanently. Out of the foreigners residing temporarily, most are relatives of Romanian citizens (20,808), students (8,790) and employees (6,951).

Most temporary residents come from the Republic of Moldova (17,091), Turkey (7,179) and China (4,752). Most permanent residents come from China (2,360), Turkey (1,864) and Syria (993).

If you liked this story, please follow MEDIAFAX.RO on FACEBOOK »

The content of mediafax.ro is for your information only. Republishing or using this content is forbidden without express consent of MEDIAFAX. For this consent, please ask for it by mail at vanzari@mediafax.ro.