The Trade and Economic Affairs Offices (TEAO) of the Bulgarian embassies and consulates abroad can be involved in the process of attracting highly qualified personnel from third countries to our country. This was said by Deputy Minister for Economy and Industry Nikolay Pavlov during a meeting of the Economic and Social Council (ESC), which discussed and adopted the ‘Analysis of the possibilities for simplifying and accelerating the procedures for access to the labour market of workers and highly qualified personnel from third countries for the needs of Bulgarian business’.
The discussion was also attended by the Chairperson of the Economic and Social Council Zornitsa Rusinova, the Deputy Minister for Labour and Social Policy Lazar Lazarov, the President of the CPSU Plamen Dimitrov, as well as representatives of the institutions concerned.
Deputy Minister Pavlov pointed out that Bulgaria’s commercial attachés can help the process by disseminating information about the need of Bulgarian businesses for highly qualified personnel. According to him, our representatives in the TEAO would also be useful in helping to ease the long processing times for job applications in our country.
Pavlov also stressed the need to retain highly qualified personnel in Bulgaria, as well as the return of Bulgarians from abroad, which he called a huge resource both in terms of number and quality.
‘All of this should happen in sync with EU regulations and be carefully thought through so as not to create social tensions and threaten our national security’, the deputy economic minister said. He added that the issue of attracting highly qualified staff from third countries also requires good coordination between all the institutions involved in the process so as to establish the numbers, quotas and markets to be targeted.
Pavlov expressed hope that the conclusions and recommendations in the presented analysis will be helpful for Bulgarian employers. ‘The inability of businesses to find enough labour is preventing them from growing’, he said.
Among the recommendations of the document adopted during the ESC meeting are the identification of a leading institution in the debate on labour migration, the coherence of legislative initiatives on the topic, the digitalization of processes related to the recruitment of highly qualified staff from third countries, etc.
The Ministry for Economy is directly involved in the issue of labour migration as an initiator of meetings with representatives of businesses and institutions to discuss the issue of finding highly qualified staff from third countries. During the meetings, a draft Action Plan on Labour Migration — 2024 was prepared, including proposals from the business community for concrete measures concerning legislative initiatives and administrative procedures. The analysis, approved by the ESC, has been developed by decision of the Council of Ministers.