The summer tourist season on the Northern Black Sea coast has just started, but for some hoteliers it is already facing failure due to the lack of workers. Visas for workers from third countries have been delayed for months, and some of them have been refused for unclear reasons.
It is mid-June, and one of the hotels in Kranevo is deserted.
„We are waiting for tourists and people to work. Unfortunately, the staff from third countries has been delayed again. This time in Bulgaria things happened quite quickly. The problem comes with visas and the arrival of people,” explained Stanislav Dimitrov, a hotelier in Kranevo, quoted by Nova TV.
The hotelier submitted documents to the Employment Agency for 15 people, trained personnel from Bangladesh back in January.
“They are currently working in Dubai, in 5-star hotels and want to come to work in Europe. The permits in Bulgaria were issued around February 20 and the documents were sent to the consulate in Dubai. To this day, we only receive refusals, with the last refusal being handed over on May 22, and the people were supposed to be here on May 19,” he said.
So far, Stanislav has received refusals for a third of the workers he applied for. But there are no visas for the remaining 10.
“The worst thing is that we have no information whether these people will not come or will come later, so that we know whether to recruit additional staff. After all the requests from ministries and responsible institutions that this year there will be more resources in the consulates and that interviews will be faster, visas will be issued faster, this did not happen”, added the hotelier.
In the Albena resort complex, the situation is similar, but on a larger scale. About 3,500 people are needed here, which is not enough on our labor market.
“We have 40 hotels and restaurants. Applications and documents have been submitted for 800 people in the AZ and in migration. Documents are submitted in the AZ for workers with a C visa, i.e. short-term employment for 90 days, and in migration they are filed for workers who have a D visa - this is a regime that is over 3 months”, explained the head of “Human Resources” at KK Albena - Tatyana Dzhilyanova.
So far, about 500 people have been approved, who are expected to arrive in the coming days. The rest have been waiting for 2 months.
“We have workers from Indonesia, from Uzbekistan we are still waiting for workers who need to get their visas. The problem that I think is the main one and which is currently bothering us is the issuance of visas at the embassies”, said Dzhilyanova.
The first foreign workers are arriving for Easter. Albena decided to take advantage of the new option by extending their period of residence.
“The documents must be submitted anew, with a full set of files, as is the case when starting work. Which complicates not only our work, but also the state institutions that have to deal with this”, Dzhilyanova also pointed out.
A few days ago, when submitting the documents to the “Migration” department, Tatyana Dzhilyanova encountered a new obstacle.
“The person must be present in person, and we have 100 people. We have already started, the season is open, these people are working. All this logistics must be done to get them to the “Migration” department in Dobrich”, she said.
There is a shortage of personnel, as everywhere, in Balchik.
“We have workers from Ukraine, Moldova and in general this is the end of our foreign workers who help so that the season is not ruined. The problem is with the workers who are outside the EU. For 2 years we have been fighting to bring in specialists from Thailand”, emphasized hotelier Viktor Luchiyanov.
While the hotelier from Balchik is fighting to legalize the stay of Thais in our country, they have already been attracted from other countries. Lucianov pointed out that they work mainly in massage centers in Switzerland and Germany.
The staffing crisis in all sectors in our country requires simplified procedures for hiring specialists, the hotelier is convinced.
“We do things in Bulgaria in such a way that it is easiest to attract uneducated, illiterate people. However, when you try to bring in a specialist for whom another country in the world has invested in his training, our laws are designed to make this slow, cumbersome and impossible”, he said.