Stricter rules for issuing work permits to non-EU nationals in 2012 have been announced by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.

The new rules are aimed at combating increasing unemployment in the Czech Republic resulting from the current global economic downturn.

Employing non-EU nationals will thus become more difficult and create an increased administrative burden for employers.

The new rules include:

  • from 1 July 2012, non-EU nationals will not be granted new work permits for vacancies requiring academic qualification lower than a high school level education with A levels, unless the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs agrees to treat it as an exceptional case.
  • existing work permits issued to non-EU nationals may only be renewed for up to 6 months at a time (previously it was usually 1-2 years).
  • existing work permits will not be renewed for agency workers from non-EU countries who have been assigned to users under contracts entered into before 1 January 2012.

This article was written for Law-Now, CMS Cameron McKenna's free online information service. To register for Law-Now, please go to www.law-now.com/law-now/mondaq

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The original publication date for this article was 27/02/2012.