Filenews 23 February 2023 - byAdamos Adamou
If anything should be credited to the outgoing Minister of Labour in the short period of his term of office, it is his determination to implement his commitments, which was confirmed yesterday with the approval by the Council of Ministers of a new strategy for the employment of foreign labour, which officially entered into force, in order to deal more effectively with the problem of the lack of human resources that afflicts business. This is because Kyriakos Kousios had pledged that he would not leave the Ministry of Labor without the approval of a new strategy, despite the reactions caused by his relevant proposals to the social partners.
With the guilds as we know calling for their withdrawal, citing, among other things, the lack of social dialogue but also the government's stance on the issue of the ATA, which it referred to the new government, as opposed to the issue of foreigners.
Despite the reactions, however, Mr Kousios proceeded yesterday to submit a multi-page document to the Council of Ministers, which in turn turned on the green light, resulting in a new strategy for the employment and licensing of workers from third countries being in force yesterday. From a first reading of the new strategy, the changes compared to what is already in place seem to be limited.
The main change is the increase of the ceiling in terms of the percentage of foreign workers that each company and employer will be able to employ. From 30% until yesterday, to 50%, provided that the company applies a sectoral or business contract.
Key changes
The Minister of Labor himself, speaking after yesterday's meeting of the Council of Ministers, reiterated the need to update the existing strategy, as it has been in force with few variations since 1992 but also due to changes / ban on the employment of asylum seekers. He also estimated that the change to increase the 30% ceiling would further strengthen collective agreements, thus reassuring guilds that were worried about their erosion.
As he explained, businesses could still employ up to 30% of their workforce with foreign personnel. Now, he added, it remains 30% however, when a company applies a sectoral or corporate collective agreement it will be able to employ up to 50% of its staff from foreigners, but always on the condition that it cannot find a local or community workforce.
The Minister of Labour even expressed the assessment that this addition will also help towards the adoption of the promoted EU directive, which will call on member states to have a density of collective agreements of up to 80%.
Under the new strategy, no maximum percentage is set for businesses or persons active in the fields of agriculture, animal husbandry and garbage collection, but the number of foreigners allowed for farming will be determined by the Ministry of Agriculture, taking into account the areas and type of crops, as well as the number of farmed animals.
In addition, the No. Labor will be able to approve a different percentage for exceptional cases that are justified on a case-by-case basis.
In the meantime, in order to strengthen collective agreements, the new strategy also states that priority will be given to the examination of requests for foreign personnel in those companies that "have agreed and apply a collective agreement regarding the terms of employment of staff". In summary, as mentioned, the changes in the new strategy are limited since the whole process of active search for Cypriots or community and the submission of requests to the Department of Labor, which will now have to keep a relevant register for obtaining a permit, before submitting an application to the Ministry of Interior, remains the same.
No mention of technical committees
Another important change in the new strategy is the establishment of a tripartite advisory committee, which will be appointed by the Minister of Labor to monitor the policy around the issue and will also have a role in first examining complaints of foreigners for unfavorable living conditions or violation of rights.
In the new strategy, however, there seems to be no mention of the tripartite technical committees that existed by sector and examined the employers' requests, but in a process that was purely advisory but also time-consuming. Another key change, as mentioned to us by connoisseurs of existing practice, is the specificity of the effects that employers who commit violations will have, as in addition to the cancellation of their approvals they will also have a time limit for resubmitting an application for employment of foreigners.
