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Live & Work in Bulgaria

Live & Work in Bulgaria Summary § § § Area - 110 994 sq. km Population - 7 974 000 Capital - Sofia Government type - Parliamentary republic Religion: Bulgarian Orthodox 82. 6%, Muslim 12. 2%, Roman Catholic 1. 7%, Jewish 0. 1%, Protestant, Gregorian-Armenian, and other 4% National Holiday- 3 -rd of March National currency - Bulgarian lev (BGN) A rate of exchange BGN / € - 1. 95 / 1 Industries Electricity, gas and water; food, beverages and tobacco; machinery and equipment, base metals, chemical products, coke, refined petroleum, nuclear fuel Exports Clothing, footwear, iron and steel, machinery and equipment, fuels Imports Fuels, minerals, and raw materials; machineryand equipment; metals and ores; chemicals and plastics; food, textiles

Structure of the National Employment Agency § Central office – Sofia § 9 Regional Employment Service Directorates § 109 Local Labor Offices § 180 Branches § www. az. government. bg

National Structure of EURES Bulgaria MANAGER /central office/ 3 assistants /central office/ financial expert Communications expert IT - expert EURES Coordinator 5 advisers Plovdiv, Lovech, Burgas, Montana, Veliko Tarnovo 3 EURES advisers to be trained in 2008 28 EURES assistants in the Local Labor Offices In each of the 28 districts

Our activities The Bulgarian EURES advisers have received altogether about 450 job offers in 13 countries more than 4000 working places. Bulgarian-English job fair for the agricultural sector in Razgrad, July 2007 International information job fair in the sphere of tourism in Bansko– September 2007 Bulgarian- German job fair for graduating students engineers in Sofia –November 2007

Special services for the employers - We can organize interviews with the potential employees - We can organize job fairs - We can do preliminary selection If you want to employ a Bulgarian citizen, you can sent your job offer through any of the Latvian EURES advisers to any of the EURES advisers in Bulgaria (in English). It is translated into Bulgarian and is sent to the Central office in Sofia (the EURES coordinator), from where it is sent to all the 109 Local labor offices and 180 branches, where the offer is put on a special place outside so everybody can see it. Anyone who is interested in the job offer can use our services.

Statistics about the registered unemployed persons in October 2007 § § § § Unemployment level (%) -6. 73 % Total number of the registered unemployed - 249 376 : 1. Women -151 397 2. Youths up to 24 - 24 098 3. Youths up to 29 - 48 024 4. Persons over 50 – 93 909 5. Long - term unemployed over 1 year - 144614 6. Persons with disabilities - 12 998 § § 7. University education - 6. 4%. 8. Illiterate persons unemployed -18718

Employment by sectors More than the half of all employed persons work in the most dynamic economic sector “Services” - 57. 4% (1785. 7 thousand persons), followed by the employed in the sector “Industry” - 34. 5% (1072. 1 thousand persons) and in the agriculture - 8. 1% (252. 2 thousand persons). The employed persons in the member-states of the European Union are also most numerous in the sphere of the services, followed by the industry and the agriculture.

Live & Work in Bulgaria Labour market shortages During 2007 job vacancies in the manufacture industry were the mostly opened, followed by trade and repairs of automobile and household appliances, education, agriculture branch, construction – house builders, casing workers, house-painters, carpenters, road constructors etc. In Bulgaria tourism is one of the most rapidly developing sectors. Yet we need workers in hotel and restaurant services - waiters, chefs and cooks, chambermaids. Recently the Bulgarian labor market suffers from a significant lack of highly-skilled professionals in the engineering and technical field - engineers, IT specialists, information and communication technology specialists, technicians. We also suffer shortage of welders, electricians, experts in labor safety, nurses and professionals speaking foreign languages.

Live & Work in Bulgaria Labour market surpluses In 2007 the biggest share of unemployed were people with qualification in the field of engineering and technology, followed by people specialized in field of economics, law, social sciences, agriculture, education and humanities and art. A little bit less are specialists in services, transportation, security and life guard, health care and exact sciences.

Live & Work in Bulgaria Contracts The oficial minimum age for starting work in Bulgaria is 16 years. As an exception people aged 15 and 16 may be hired with a special permission from The Labour Inspection Office. Employees in Bulgaria can be hired for a limited period of time or for a permanent work , for a full time /in the most cases/ or for a part time work. The full time working day is 8 hours per a day. Usually the employers prefer to first hire workers with a contract with a probation period /the probation period may not be longer than 6 months/. No matter for what period the worker is hired, a labour contract is obligatory. The contract should be concluded before the worker starts work. Within a 3 -day period the employer is obliged to send a Notification for each contract to the National Revenue Agency /NRA/. The worker should be provided with copies of the contract and of the NRA Notification. The notice period for terminating a contract /either by the employee or the employer/ is 30 days. By mutual consent – 7 days.

Live & Work in Bulgaria Minimum and average salary At present the guaranteed minimum salary per month in Bulgaria Is 180 lv (about 95 Euro), for 2008 it will be 110 EURO. The average salary is 460 lv per month (about 230 Euro). Annual leave Any worker has the right for a paid annual leave. The duration of the basic paid annual leave is no less than 20 work days /if the worker has completed 6 months length of service/. The workers should use their annual leave in the year it belongs. They may delay it only with a permission by the employer.

Live & Work in Bulgaria Taxation According to the Personal Income Tax Act a subject for taxation in Bulgaria are : -domestic individuals /that means persons whose permanent address is in Republic of Bulgaria, or persons who reside in Republic of Bulgaria more than 183 days in each 12 months, or persons for whom Bulgaria is centre of their vital interests place/ - foreign individuals /all the other persons not included in the list of the domestic individuals/. Foreign individuals are taxable on income earned from sources in Bulgaria. Wages for labour performed on the territory of Bulgaria are taxable as a source from Bulgaria. Since 2008 there’s going to be a flat rate -10%.

Live & Work in Bulgaria Social insurance According to the Bulgarian legislation insurance contributions are allocated in: § the Pensions fund – 19%; § the General sickness and maternity fund – 3. 5%; § the Work injury and occupational sickness fund – between 0. 4 – 1. 1% /paid only at the expense of the employer/; § the Unemployment fund – 3%. § the Obligatory additional pension insurance /only for persons born after 1960/ - 4%; § the Health insurance– 6%.

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