Montenegro currently lacks 4,000 to 5,000 seasonal workers, the Ministry of Tourism said.
The department expects that, thanks to the simplified procedures for obtaining permits, they will be able to hire the missing workforce by the start of the season. It is also the epilogue of the meeting attended by the Minister of Internal Affairs Filip Adžić and representatives of the Chamber of Commerce. Although everyone’s goal is a successful summer season, they say that the priority is safety, so the checks will be more rigorous for some workers from distant countries.
We have a lack of workforce, we lack waiters, not head chefs, I hope they all have that, but those who help cooks, maids, lifeguards – said Luka Bulatović from the Chamber of Commerce. As the authorities announce, a successful summer season awaits us. All we have left is to find the manpower.
Some 4,000 to 5,000 workers are missing at the moment, we are not talking about the workers who will come from Nepal, India, Pakistan, but we are also talking about the labor force from the region. I hope that we will meet that figure, that our hoteliers and restaurateurs will have a sufficient number of workers for this season – Minister of Economic Development Goran Đurović told TVCG.
That is why the ministers of economic development, internal affairs and representatives of the Chamber of Commerce are looking for a solution to provide seasonal workers who would choose our country to work during the summer.
For individuals coming from distant countries and seeking visas to enter the country and work in it, the checks will be more rigorous, all for the sake of a safe season. This is that they have a history of entering and exiting the country, a work history, knowledge of the English language, a minimum of indicators that they really want to return to the country after the job is done, minimum security checks that we must have in order to be granted a permit – Minister Đurović says.
For now, we have about 600 or so applications that have been processed, half of them were given the opportunity to work in Montenegro, and half of them were rejected for various reasons. These are mainly problematic countries, India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Egypt – said the Minister of the Interior, Filip Adžić.
The MUP says that since the new year, 15,000 people have wanted to work in Montenegro, but statistics show that a small number of them want to try their hand at tourism.
324 requests refer to the seasonal workforce, of which 129 are unresolved and 195 resolved, some 200 requests compared to 15,000, which is a really small percentage – Dragan Dašić, head of the Directorate for Foreigners, Migration and Readmission of the TVCG, said.
The reason, according to the MUP, is that a large number of workers have flocked to the countries of the region. For example, Croatia issued 40,000 permits for residents of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 20,000 for citizens of Serbia, while 10,000 citizens of Kosovo were given the opportunity to work in Croatia.
However, we do not have data on how many Montenegrin citizens have received work permits in that country.
While we calculate how many seasonal workers we lack and whether they will come to the south and north of our country, the authorities promise that those who are still loyal to Montenegrin tourism will be taken care of better.
Not this year, because it was too late, but they announce that for next year, they will consider the possibility of workers receiving a salary in the off-season as well.
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