Bulgaria Imports Cheap Regional Labour to Save Tourism Boom

Facing a serious problem with a shortage of workers ahead of the summer season, Bulgaria's booming tourist industry is seeking to employ foreign workers to meet the growing demand.

While the Ministry of Tourism forecasts a rise of up to 10 per cent in numbers of tourists this summer, the sector unofficially estimates it is short of 15,000 to 25,000 workers to provide services for the increase.

"I am very worried. We are bringing in more foreign tourists because of different geopolitical factors - but how are we going to provide them services?" Elena Ivanova, president of the Union of Owners in Sunny Beach, the largest resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea, told BIRN.

"Only foreigners can offer us some perspective," Ivanova said, explaining that Bulgarian workers either seek jobs abroad, or are "young and unqualified people who do not want to work".

She said that nationals from Ukraine and Moldova, which have large ethnic Bulgarian communities, as well as Macedonia and Belarus, are the most willing to take summer jobs at Bulgaria's seaside resorts.

At a roundtable in November 2016, the President of the Independent Syndical Federation in Trade, Cooperatives, Tourism and Services called salaries in the tourism sector in Bulgaria "humiliating", noting that the average monthly pay cheque in the sector in Bulgaria was only 295 euros compared with 2,000 euros in Spain.

In January, the Labour Ministry eased the conditions for hiring non-EU citizens for seasonal jobs in the tourist and agricultural sectors, after that option was introduced under a new labour migration act in 2016.

Deputy Prime Minister Valeri Simeonov said in the resort of Varna on May 19 that additional incentives to attract foreign nationals had...

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