More and more, immigration law is becoming a hot issue in the Czech Republic as the growth of foreign investors has resulted in a shortage of qualified workers. After years of strict immigration regulations, the Czech government is now enacting more flexible solutions. This Commentary, prepared by Natasa Randlova, a partner at PRK Prochzka / Randl / Kubr in Prague, discusses one such solution, known as the Green Card Programme.
Ms. Randlova writes: More and more, immigration law is becoming a hot issue in the Czech Republic in part because the Czech Republic, as well as its Central European neighbours, is suffering from a shortage of qualified workers as a direct result of the rapid growth of foreign investors.
Indeed, on the Czech market, there is great demand for university-educated professionals and other skilled employees. Almost two-thirds of job vacancies registered at labour offices around the country are for qualified craft professions welders, blacksmiths, locksmiths and the like. The demand increased once the country joined the European Union and many skilled craftspeople left for better paying work in Western Europe. Accordingly, investors are now beginning to look more to the East, "importing" workers from Ukraine, Vietnam, etc., and after years of strict immigration regulations, the Czech government is now enacting more flexible solutions in response to this trend.
In this respect, the very complicated post-accession procedures required to employ foreign workers (that is, not EU or EEA citizens, or family members) ("third-country nationals") has contributed to the mass increase in job vacancies. It currently takes from five-to-six months to place third-country nationals into a job vacancy. Therefore, in an attempt to address this problem, the Czech Government has launched a new Green Card Programme, which greatly simplifies the processes for certain categories of third-country nationals. This Commentary discusses the Programme and its potential impact on the current employment shortages.