Serbia Issued More Than 50,000 Work Permits to Foreigners This Year

The branch offices of the National Employment Service issued a total of 50,397 work permits to foreign nationals in Serbia in 2023, according to the data of the Ministry of Labor and Employment, the Politika daily writes. The majority of the work permits, as shown by the data, were issued to citizens of Russia (19,645), followed by China, Turkey, India and Nepal.

On seasonal jobs in agriculture, since the beginning of the year, 1,091 foreigners have been hired.

Seasonal workers can also be foreign nationals whose residence in Serbia is reported to the Ministry of Interior. Hiring for seasonal jobs is a form of temporary employment to which no special conditions for the hiring of foreigners apply, that is, the conditions are the same as for all other persons who are citizens of Serbia.

The National Alliance for Local Economic Development (NALED) said that the total number of registered seasonal workers in 2023 was 33,054, which shows that the percentage of foreigners is low compared to Serbian nationals, because it amounts to around 3.3%.

– There had been almost no hiring of foreign nationals for seasonal jobs in agriculture until 2021, after which a trend of an increase in the number of applications was recorded. In the past two years, the number of foreigners hired for seasonal jobs in agriculture has not differed to a great extent – said the NALED.

Compared to 2022, when 967 workers were hired, this year, the number is higher by 124 applications.

They also add that the majority of foreign workers came from Uzbekistan and Egypt, and that, in the previous years, workers from Nepal and India were hired.

After registering the residence, which can also be done electronically, the foreign national gets the registration number for foreigners (EBS) which the employer uses to register the worker, Politika writes.

NALED Beograd

Ministarstvo za rad, zapošljavanje, boračka i socijalna pitanja Republike Srbije

NALED

National Employment Service

Ministry of Labor and Employment

work permits for foreigners