In the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, more than 240,000 unemployed people were registered, while at the same time employers are warning about the lack of labor force.
Changes to the Law on the Employment of Foreigners will soon be before the delegates of the House of Peoples of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, after the proposal has already been adopted in the House of Representatives.
The goal of the changes is to speed up procedures and facilitate the engagement of foreign workers in sectors where there is not enough domestic labor. The biggest shortage of workers is recorded in construction, catering and tourism. During the last year, more than two and a half thousand work permits were issued for foreign workers.
Foreign workers are an alternative when the domestic market fails, and it has been functioning with difficulty for years. Construction, tourism, catering are sectors that lack labor. Employers claim that the bureaucracy for hiring foreign workers is slow, complicated and expensive. The process lasts up to nine months, where it must be proven that there are no domestic workers and go through a series of institutions.
Director of the Association of Employers of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mario Nenadić, pointed out that FTV that the existing system burdens employers too much.
“We believe that it is not the employers’ obligation to take care of these issues and that these matters should be taken over by the state, that is, the system. Employment mediation services must work better and more specifically,” said Nenadić.
Planned changes to the law
By amending the Law, clearer deadlines are introduced for the extension and issuance of work permits for foreigners, so the employer will be obliged to submit them at the earliest 60 and at the latest 30 days before the expiration of the valid permit, and the cantonal employment services must make a decision within 30 days of submitting the application. One of the key novelties is the list of deficit occupations. This will make it easier to hire workers in sectors where there is no local workforce.
Federal Minister of Labor and Social Policy Adnan Delić (NiP) explained that the amendments to the Law bring more precise deadlines and simpler procedures.
“Quotas and everything related to the number of foreign workers are at the state level, but the entity level of government processes the requests of employers in the context of work permits. We want to shorten the administration and processing of those requests. One of the novelties is the decision on deficit occupations,” said Delić.
The fundamental problem of the market
The list of deficit occupations is useful, but does not solve the essence of the problem. Because the key law – the law on employment mediation and social security of the unemployed – which, among other things, regulates the records of unemployed persons – was not adopted in the Federal Parliament. And without him, this solution for employers is only partial.
“It is obvious that it was necessary to pass a law on mediation, because we know that we have about 245,000 people on the unemployment registers in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and it is not easy for employers to find labor. In addition, the process is burdened by trends in labor migration in the environment and throughout the world,” said Nenadić.
“The best thing would be to ask those who overthrew it. It is about essential reform of the labor market, separating active from inactive job seekers, which would significantly contribute to clearing the records,” said Delić.
Amendments to the law promise faster procedures – but without substantial reform of the labor market, the problem will only deepen and the economy will be under the pressure of a vacuum between the outgoing domestic labor force and limited quotas on the state’s new import of the country that is the smallest in the region, and never more needed.
