site.btaEver More Companies in Bulgaria Employ Foreigners

"These people have a slightly different mentality. They come from Muslim countries, their culture fosters respect for the employer and the boss. And they have much higher levels of discipline. They lack experience, but fellow businessmen have told me that these people are satisfied with what they get here," says Krassen Krastev, CEO of plastic parts and assemblies manufacturer Mecalit Bulgaria. His company is about to hire its first workers from Uzbekistan, the news website Capital.bg says in an analysis.

The general public may find it exotic, but from January until early October Uzbeks received almost 830 permits to work in Bulgaria, the website says. Under the law, such permits are valid for up to three years, during which time the receiving company's investment in the workers can pay off. The investment is the money for documents and visas, transport, accommodation, utility bills and training, among other things.

Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have been among the most preferred source countries of unskilled labour in Bulgaria over the last few years. People from these former Soviet republics have an interest in coming here; most of them speak Russian, which makes communication easier, and the working conditions in Bulgaria are appealing to them. In 2020, per-capita GDP in Uzbekistan was six times lower than in Bulgaria, and in Kyrgyzstan it was 8.5 times lower. The average monthly wage in Uzbekistan is EUR 120, one-fifth of the level in Bulgaria, Capital.bg says.

About 10% of the staff of Bulgaria's largest restaurant chain, Happy, are foreigners, mainly from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkey and Ukraine. They are about 300 people typically working in kitchens. According to Aglika Adamova, who is in charge of human resources at Happy, they cope just as well as the rest of the staff. Adamova says: "Generally speaking, the import of labour from non-EU countries is becoming common practice in Bulgaria for the industries which rely on low-skilled labour. The factors which drive the process are a deteriorating population situation in Bulgaria, continuing emigration of working-age Bulgarians, and rising qualifications of the local workforce, which is looking for a different type of employment." Adamova adds that the practice of importing labour from non-EU countries has become more widespread over the last five years, because the legislation is less cumbersome than in earlier periods. Happy has 110 employees from Uzbekistan and 100 from Kyrgyzstan.

Unskilled and low-skilled labour is imported to Bulgaria through the services of about 30 staffing agencies, Capital.bg says, quoting business executives. Most of these agencies work with local intermediaries. In addition to providing contacts with job seekers, they also help arrange the issuance of necessary permits, which is a long and cumbersome process taking at least several months.

Before the COVID crisis, the most widely employed foreign workers in Bulgaria were seasonal workers from Ukraine. A high point was reached in 2019, when over 11,400 foreigners were registered as seasonal workers in this country, mainly in tourism, 76% of them Ukrainians. As the world shut down during the pandemic, tourism waned and the Ukraine war broke out. Since April 2022, Ukrainian refugees have temporary protection status in the EU, giving them equal rights to those of EU citizens when seeking a job in the bloc and thus sparing them the slow and complicated work permit procedure. According to business executives, however, Ukrainians have never been too eager to come and work in Bulgaria. They tend to view the country as a transit point which gives them access to the EU labour market.

"The expectations of many staffing agencies that the Ukrainian citizens who are coming here will help make up for the labour shortage, remain unfulfilled for now," says Maria Stoeva of ManpowerGroup Bulgaria. "The Ukrainians who have effectively started work in Bulgaria are far fewer than the vacant job positions for which there are not enough Bulgarian applicants. People from such countries as Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka and Moldova have been successfully integrated in quite a few companies operating in Bulgaria."

To judge from data released by the two institutions authorized to issue permits for non-EU citizens to stay and work in Bulgaria, the Employment Agency and the Interior Ministry's Migration Directorate, the workers imported over the last two years have been mainly people from Turkey, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

Adamova says that in the last six months a growing number of staffing agencies have been offering workers from Turkey. "As the Turkish lira depreciated, the standard of living in that country fell, which is why ever more Turks are looking for employment abroad. Some of them prefer Bulgaria because it is a neighbouring country," Adamova says.

In addition to the hotel and restaurant sector, Turkish workers are also preferred in the construction industry, Employment Agency data show. The figures further indicate that Moldovans are among the five most preferred nationalities when it comes to recruiting foreign workers, and some employers hire people from North Macedonia and Russia. According to Migration Directorate data, blue cards have been issued this year to skilled personnel from Cuba, Russia and Belarus as well as 59 seasonal workers from Indonesia. A few dozen workers from China crop up in the records every once in a while.

The interest of Bulgarian employers in importing foreign workers dates back at least a few years, but human resources experts note that demand for foreign labour surged after the COVID pandemic, the analysis says. The main factor is not lower wage costs, but the development of the businesses coupled with a shortage of local labour (not just experts but also unskilled and low-skilled workers).

Stoeva comments: "Such decisions are most often made by companies in remote areas, including border areas and the northwest of the country. Regardless of the working conditions an employer would create there, he could hardly count on local labour because such settlements are underpopulated." Stoeva adds, however, that there are also quite a few examples of organizations in larger cities, including the capital Sofia, which are beginning to recruit workers from non-EU countries as part of their policies of business continuity and risk minimization.

There is information about the number of foreign workers in Bulgaria, but it is divided between the Employment Agency and the Migration Directorate. Under the law, one of these institutions is in charge of issuing some permits and the other institution is in charge of granting other permits, and both institutions are responsible for most of the permits. After the Employment Agency issues a positive written opinion about an applicant, he may be rejected by the Migration Directorate, for instance. Still, data from the two departments indicate that between 5,000 and 6,000 permits have been issued annually over the last two years. Several hundred of them are for the so-called blue card for skilled personnel, others are for posted workers, but the most common types are for stay and work in Bulgaria for up to three years or seasonal employment for up to 90 days.

Stoeva says: "A new trend is discernible in the case of blue-card experts, usually computer software engineers and IT experts. As the post-COVID world provides opportunities for remote employment, the relocation of such people to Bulgaria has become much more difficult than before." According to Stoeva, most companies in Europe, including many in Bulgaria, are currently open to working with teams remotely. IT experts are certainly not an exception: they can reside in any country and work for a firm at the other end of the world.

But other types of businesses say they need to import workers because they have no choice. Bulgaria just doesn't have enough people, and the problem is getting more and more acute. This is confirmed by data from the latest population census. Bulgaria's population has decreased by an average of 84,000 people in each of the last 10 years, including 34,000 emigrants annually. These are usually individuals of working age who flow into the labour markets of the wealthier Western societies. The resulting deficits in Bulgaria are beginning to be gradually offset by workers from Eastern countries, Capital.bg says.