The Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, Goran Vesić, said that in Serbia, 30 percent of all construction workers are foreigners, and that their participation in agriculture is even higher.
Vesić announced for Večernje Novosti that the liberalization of labor legislation is coming and said that Serbia has started importing workers, which is good, because it means that it has progressed and that it is a country where you can earn money. He added that throughout Europe there was a decline in the construction industry due to the war in Ukraine and rising inflation, but also due to a lack of labor.
Asked about abuses and employers who replaced domestic workers with foreign ones, Vesić said that there are such abuses in the EU as well, but that this does not mean that the workforce should not come to Serbia.
According to him, in some municipalities and cities there is a delay in issuing construction permits and this problem can be solved by making the procedures faster, more transparent and simpler.
“That’s why we’re changing the Law on Planning and Construction, and with the changes we’re abolishing conversion for a fee, and thus we’ll free up about 5,000 locations where about 15 million new square meters can be built in Serbia,” said Vesić.
More and more foreigners due to the lack of local workers
Director of the National Employment Service (NES), Zoran Martinović, confirmed that domestic companies are hiring an increasing number of foreigners.
In accordance with the increased demand of employers for labor force, the number of foreigners who hire domestic companies is increasing, because they have replaced the deficit profiles of the labor force in our country, primarily in the field of construction – masons, carpenters, while there are also more and more of those who work in in the IT sector, as well as in service activities, said Martinović.
Martinović told Tanjug that since the beginning of the year, more than 14,000 work permits have been issued to foreigners, and that this number is significantly higher than in previous years.
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