Government Speeds Process For Foreign Workers

Jul 15, 2008

(Source: By Zoraida Diaz. The Beach Times. http://thebeachtimes.com/article.php?id=2&at=2239)

Qualified Companies Can Get Residence Permits in Two Weeks
After years of dealing with crippling bureaucracy, qualified national and foreign companies will now be able to get temporary residence permits for foreign workers within two weeks.

In some cases, a new Immigration Department directive will allow foreign workers to obtain the status of temporary resident in as little as three days.

Twenty-five companies have already filed paperwork to qualify for the new rules. According to the Immigration Department, 20 have already been approved.

Immigration Director, Mario Zamora, issued the directive after extensive consultation with the Ministries of Foreign Trade, Economy, Competitiveness, and Work, and with business associations and commerce chambers.

Mr Zamora, the Minister of Foreign Trade, Marco Vinicio Ruiz, and the Minister of Competitiveness, Jorge Woodbridge, held a workshop this week to introduce the new directive to company directors.

“This government has committed to strengthening its policy to attract direct foreign investment through a positive environment that attracts new companies,” said Minister of Foreign Trade Ruiz.

“The migratory issue is one of the aspects that influence a country’s business climate, and this is why it is important to rely on instruments that provide for the needs of the productive sectors,” he added.

The Law of Immigration, passed in 2006, allows for foreign professionals to be given preferential treatment “for reasons of convenience, opportunity and competitiveness for the State of Costa Rica.”

However, wide-spread criticism meant procedures to carry out the law were never put in place.

Mr Zamora’s directive, which went into effect on May 19, aims to correct that.

The immigration decree is generally limited to highly qualified college graduates or those with proven professional expertise, like senior managers, executives, and technicians with extensive knowledge of specialized equipment, technology or markets. It also allows for those who are part of international posting rotations, essential to the operation of a company.

Until now, companies bringing in foreign workers had been using a joint Foreign Trade and Work Ministries decree that allowed 12-month-long work permits. They could also apply for preferential business status issued by the Immigration Council. Both procedures were cumbersome and lengthy.

The new directive now gives companies the option of allowing those 12-month permits to expire, before joining the new registry. Or they can switch to the new procedure immediately, to qualify for the extended two-year temporary residence permits.

Eligible companies must meet two of three requirements.

First, the company must generate direct employment for Costa Ricans and contribute to the economic development of the country.

Second, their operating plan must include an established quota of foreign, executive-level, workers.

Or third, the company can register as a tourism interest business; operate under export promotion status administered by the Ministry of Foreign Trade, or register as a banking entity.

The new directive even calls for a “preferential window” at the terminally over-crowded Immigration Office in San José, to be used exclusively by registered companies.

The measure has been roundly welcomed by the business community.

“This (decree) is of great importance for all those companies that require transferring qualified personnel from other markets to Costa Rica,” said Oscar Cabada Corvisier, President of the Costa Rican Chamber of Commerce.

“It makes the process more transparent.”
Mr Cabada says the decree will ease the widening gap between the demands of the labor market and the available offer for skilled workers

“The educational curriculum has not been adequately updated to respond to the country’s prodigious growth in terms of labor and economic development,” he said, offering up one reason for the need for a specialized foreign work force.

When asked if the easier route to bringing in foreign labor would affect the national labor market, Mr Cabada was adamant companies always preferred hiring locally, if possible.

“Intel came here and began to educate the workers in the ways of their operation; the managers who came were called Max and James,” said Mr Cabada.

“Five years had to pass before nationals had been trained in the corporate culture of a multinational,” he said. “Now they have local managers.

“There’s a need for some professionals and high-level technicians, engineers and others; but there’s also an unsatisfied demand of manual labor for the construction and tourism sectors and some areas of the services sector,” he said, pointing to the unresolved labor crisis in some sectors.

The Immigration Law has been widely criticized for being too tough on illegal immigrants, and Mr Zamora was given the task, not just of modernizing the Immigration Department, but of drafting a bill to correct the law’s perceived vagaries.

The 38 year−old lawyer from Alajuela, with post graduate work in Law Administration, Latin American Studies and International Human Rights, admits the bill is based on a respect for human rights, a simplification of the immigration processes and on the design of a national policy that controls the type of migrants that will benefit the development of the country.

Mr Zamora believes foreigners have contributed to the development of the country since the 19th century when German and Italian migrants helped develop the coffee industry.

“We’ve always been very supportive of immigration,” he said. “There’s a historic process in which heroes like astronaut Chang and the swimming champion Poll sisters are of foreign descent. They make our country proud.”

In the absence of a set of regulations for the current law, given the intent to modify it, Mr Zamora’s directive is one way to implement procedures in keeping with the modernizing spirit of the bill.

In Article 6 of Law 8487, the new bill’s text reads: “...to attract certain types of immigration that will increase foreign capital investment and strengthen scientific, technological, cultural and professional knowledge in the areas defined as a priority, and in accordance to the skills and qualifications needed for the country’s development.”