2024 MAY BRING SIGNIFICANT CHANGES REGARDING FOREIGN WORKERS

During the month of November, Senate of Romania adopted a draft law to transpose the European directive on the conditions of entry and residence of foreigners seeking qualified employment (Directive 2021/1883), but also to amend the current local legislation (OG 25/2014 and OUG 194/2002), amendments that, we believe, will have positive effects on the process of obtaining and extending residence permits for work purposes for foreigners. Therefore, we will briefly go over some of the most important proposals made.

Regarding the regime of foreigners in Romania, there are a series of changes of significant importance in 2024, such as:

• • Companies hosting foreigners will be required to inform the territorial formations of the IGI regarding the termination or suspension of employment relationships with the foreigner, within 10 days from the date of the event, a much shorter period compared to the current 30 days.

• • The maximum period by which the right of temporary residence for work purposes can be extended will be two years, compared to one year, and for skilled workers, the maximum increases to three years, instead of two. This proposal is very well received, especially from the perspective of streamlining the activity of the General Inspectorate for Immigration by reducing the number of applications for obtaining and extending residence permits.

• • Also, another particularly important provision was added, namely, "the foreigner who is legally residing in Romania on the date of submission of the application shall maintain his right to reside until the date of its resolution"“

• • Workers from the territorial formations of the IGI will have the responsibility to organize and carry out, under the law, inspections in public or private institutions, as well as in the premises of companies, in order to ascertain whether employers or beneficiaries of service provision have fulfilled the conditions for employment or posting of foreigners on Romanian territory.

• • Foreigners holding the right of temporary residence for studies will be able to be employed on Romanian territory without the need to obtain an employment permit, but only with a part-time individual employment contract, with a maximum working time of 6 hours per day, modifying the current norm of 4 hours per day.

• • New conditions are imposed for the issuance of the employment permit, such as that the employer's activity must not have been established or carried out for the main purpose of facilitating the entry of foreigners into the territory of Romania or that the foreigner must actually carry out activities on the territory of Romania compatible with the position for which his employment was requested. It is important to note that IGI workers will be able to carry out checks to verify the fulfillment of the aforementioned conditions.

• • A final impactful change in 2024 is the reduction in the salary for highly qualified workers. The employer who intends to employ such a foreigner will have to ensure a salary at least equal to the average gross salary in the country, and not twice its value.

We believe that this legislative project brings a series of positive and long-awaited changes in 2024 and we hope that these are the beginning of a series of changes for streamlining the hiring process of foreign workers.