Proposed amendments to the “Law on the Establishment of the Inspection Service at the Ministry of Labour and Social Insurance” and the “Law on Aliens and Immigration” aim to boost efforts towards curbing illegal employment of non-EU nationals.
In addition to fines and imprisonment for the employer, the Inspection Service Service could soon be able to also take over powers for administrative penalties currently held by the Director of the Department of Population and Immigration Records.
The proposed amendments are all part of a drive to also curb illegal immigration.
Specifically, they aim to improve the framework for cracking down on the illegal employment of illegal foreigners, inspection of employers but also to prevent the exploitation of third country nationals.
In this direction, two bills were submitted before Parliament in March that had been approved by the previous government in cooperation and consultation of the Ministry of Labour and that of Interior.
The first bill amends the “Law on the Establishment of the Inspection Service at the Ministry of Labour and Social Insurance” and the second the “Law on Aliens and Immigration”.
The bills, which may also have been adopted as a counterbalance to the new strategy for the employment of foreigners adopted by the previous government must be adopted together in order to achieve their objective.
This is something, however, that continues to provoke opposition from the island’s strong enough unions.
