The employers' confederation IMM Romania considers that the emergency ordinance regarding the registration and obligations of employers of foreigners, the authorization and operation of agencies for placing foreigners on the Romanian labor market, makes the process of recruiting foreign labor more difficult.
Romulus Badea, president of the Employers' Confederation of Labor Importers (PIFM), member of IMM Romania, briefly presented, on Thursday, in a conference, the position of the Employers' Confederation, noting that the provisions of the ordinance will lead to a significant increase in costs, which will ultimately be borne by SMEs, which risks blocking legal recruitment and affecting economic activity.
"We support the need for a bill that would facilitate access to foreign labor, ensure short processing times and the lowest possible administrative and bureaucratic costs. Given that SMEs are the ones that go through this process and bear the full costs, it is necessary for them to be protected and benefit from predictability, including by guaranteeing the maintenance of the employment relationship with the employee for a period of two years," proposes IMM Romania.
The organization requests the elimination of the List of shortage occupations and the shortening of the processing time of single applications for foreign workers, as well as the elimination of obligations that require SMEs in Romania to bear the costs of transportation for the foreign worker, as well as any commissions charged by agencies in the countries of residence.
According to the cited source, SMEs should be solely responsible for the reasonable costs of the recruitment process, in accordance with international principles according to which employees should not pay for the right to work, without transferring additional financial obligations that are not their responsibility.
IMM Romania also requests the extension of the implementation period of the new legislation by establishing a transition period that would allow the processing of all files submitted under the legislation in force, in order to avoid administrative blockages and financial losses and considers that the one-month period provided for by the draft emergency ordinance is insufficient to resolve the files submitted.
At the same time, the organization requests the elimination of the guarantee deposit, worth 200,000 euros, a measure that indirectly transfers additional costs to SMEs and leads to the elimination of small and medium-sized agencies from the market, which cannot afford such a guarantee.
IMM Romania also requests the establishment of a guarantee fund within the National Credit Guarantee Fund for SMEs, which would be an initial fund and a contribution for each worker who arrives in Romania.
The organization draws attention to the fact that the sanctioning system provided for by the draft law is excessively harsh and disproportionate in relation to the punishable acts and reflects a distrust of the authorities towards the private sector.
"Through this bill, the state implicitly recognizes its inability to fulfill its legal responsibilities, failures constantly manifested in recent years, and tries to transfer these attributions to the private sector. This approach distorts commercial relations between economic agents and sanctions private operators for failure to fulfill obligations for which they do not have the prerogatives of a public authority. IMM Romania considers it unacceptable that SMEs and private agencies are sanctioned for situations that do not depend on their will or control and for which they have no real means of prevention or control, which represents an abuse of authority and creates a climate of legal insecurity for the business milieu in Romania," reads the employers' position on the said normative act.
IMM Romania finally requests the completion of an impact study, the application of the SME Test and the revision of the draft law through real consultation with the business milieu, so that the final form is balanced, predictable and adapted to the real needs of the Romanian economy.
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