Currently, intermediaries and the mafia are making huge money off foreigners. To stop this practice, the Czech Interior Ministry is adopting the experience of its Portuguese colleagues. It is expected, for example, that branches of the Czech labor exchange or a licensed employment agency will open at the Czech Embassy in Ukraine, which will recruit workers for Czech companies, as well as deliver workers to the Czech Republic and find housing for them.
"Illegal employment is so widespread here that it cannot be combated by repressive measures alone," explains the reasons for drafting the new bill, a representative of the Czech Interior Ministry, Jakub Švec. According to him, the bill will be submitted to the government next year.
However, the Interior Ministry is already taking some steps to change its policy towards foreign workers. Currently, in Vietnam and some former Soviet republics, Czechs are establishing contacts with non-governmental organizations that are ready to open information centers in these countries. They will provide consultations to those wishing to legally come to work in the Czech Republic.
The Czech Interior Ministry also intends to change tax policy regarding guest workers. The ministry plans to give foreign workers the opportunity to request the return of social and medical insurance payments (the exact same model is applied in Germany).
According to statistics, at the end of last year, 108,000 foreigners were legally employed in the Czech Republic. During the same period, the police detained about 27,000 illegal migrants.