Making it Easier for Foreigners to Work in Małopolska

The voivod of the region, Stanisław Kracik, has just released a list of professions for which work permits will be given without requiring an official report on the local labour market from the governor’s office.

This comes as a result of employers complaining of a lack of specialists and experts in certain areas, according to Kracik, who replied, “we wanted to make their lives easier.” The new regulations will make it easier to hire qualified professionals from outside of Poland, which according to the voivod, “will speed development among local companies and allow several investments to come to completion.”

The list of approved professions for automatic foreign employment includes architects, doctors, nurses, roofers, carpenters, and teachers of foreign languages, amongst others. For these professions, an employer wanting to hire a foreigner must submit a written application to the Małopolska Voivodeship Office requesting a foreign work permit. Permission will be granted if two conditions are met: first, that the compensation being offered to the foreigner is not less than the compensation being offered to Polish workers in a similar position or doing comparable work, and second, that according to the governor’s office there are not willing Poles in line for the proposed position or recruitment among Poles returned negative results. Work requests for foreigners in professions not included on this list will have to go through the old process of waiting on an official report from the governor’s office.

In 2009, about 2,000 foreigners received work permits in the Małopolska region, and in the first half of this year they were granted to 1,050 foreigners, mostly from China, Pakistan, Turkey, Ukraine, and Vietnam.