We hosted a Romanian high school student several years ago and kept in touch since then. She’s really nice, smart, and we’ve enjoyed getting to know her. She is now in college but worried about her job prospects. Evidentally, there’s not a whole lot of opportunity in her home country.
Are there places in the European Union or nearby that would be good for foreign students like her to find employment? She’s looked into a few things online but they seem a little sketchy (like sign a 1-year contract to work in the Middle East for $400/mo). I know in the US, the cruise ships would be a good place to try. Are there things like that in the EU? Some sort of decent paying hospitality job or similar that employs foreign workers?
I would heartily encourage her to stay away from contracts in the middle or far east, you keep hearing horror stories about coerced prostitution [once they get there and turn over their passports they are fucked because they cant leave without it, and are forced into servicing men]
We had a lovely time on a cruise in Feb on Royal Caribbean, and we were chatting with a few Romanians on board and they said it was a lot of work, but the money was much better than they could have managed back at home, and they made a fair amount in tips. They said that many of the cruise lines have hiring offices in Bucharest.
As I understand it, only a few older EU countries have opened their borders to the newest EU countries, and they’re all Scandinavian countries.
But I am sure that she knows this better than I do. I’m not sure what we can do from here, other than encourage her NOT to accept any job she sees posted on a bulletin board somewhere. This is something you see VERY VERY commonly in poorer European countries - pick strawberries in Britain! be a hotel maid in Greece! work in a bar in Germany!. There’s no way to do due diligence on these outfits and they are sketchy at best, and a hook into human trafficking at worst.
It is true that some Northern European countries allow people from the new EU countries to come and work, but I fear that will change. Unemployment rates are rising here as well, and people seem less than keen on having to compete with Romanians, Bulgarians, etc. for jobs. Denmark recently had a similar case to the Roma expulsion thing in France, and sadly, no-one seems to care.
It might be possible to get a job here in Denmark, but it won’t be a good one. Payment will be better here than in Romania, definitely, but she’ll basically become part of our new Imported Working Class. Not exactly a dream come true for a college graduate. Most of the “new” Eastern European immigrants I meet here seem to work day-to-day jobs or collecting & returning used bottles (not really a job, but put in 12h/day and you might survive). Sad but true.
And I’ll echo aruvqan’s and Kyla’s warnings - she definitely doesn’t want to end up in some horrible bonded labor situation.
ETA: It might be possible for here to come as an exchange student or something similar. There are loads of EU programs for these things. If she enters the country that way, her chances for success will be a lot higher. She could check the University of Copenhagen’s website.
Is she looking for permanent or temporary employment? If it’s permanent, then I wouldn’t define her as “a student” any more; the issue of what kind of training does she have and whether she can complete it in other EU countries (if she’s not finished) would also be relevant. If she’s looking at what to do and where to go when she’s finished, when is she finishing? Having a degree in Engineering provides very different prospects from having one in Etruscan History.
Languages, ok, I assume she has at least Romanian (which is good for the other Romance-language countries, our languages will be relatively easy for her to learn) and English. Any others?
The EU currently has an ongoing request for translators with Romanian as their main language; I happen to know they’re pretty desperate for Eastern European languages in general (Note: contents of the link will change with time). You do NOT need a degree in Translation to run for these, you need to be a EU citizen and to have a college degree.
While not all EU countries have granted full access for romanians and bulgarians to their work market, it is perfectly possible to get a job in an EU country, especially if you have a college degree.
Also, I think is quite safe to get any kind of work (including in bars or picking strawberrys) in EU; while it may be illegal for them to work in some EU countries, romanians and bulgarians have the right to travel anywhere in EU (you don’t even need a passeport for that, the national ID card is enough). So, one can be in a situation when works illegally in an EU country, but is there legally: IMO, this makes it much easier to simply go to the police, especially in life threatening circumstances. Of course, one must be careful and pay attention, but I think an educated person, aware of his/hers rights as an EU citizen, would be quite safe.
I’m romanian and I’m currently working in Germany; my sister works in Italy and I have romanian friends working in Belgium, Ireland, France, Denmark, England, Spain… One thing we all have in common is a foreign degree (master or PhD) or at least several semesters spent as exchange students in Western Europe. This makes it much easier later, when looking for a job. So, I would recommend your friend to look into exchange and master programs in Western Europe (like the Erasmus program). There are also scholarships offered by each government, independent of EU programs. It depends a lot on what she is studying; for technical stuff (engineering, physics) I would recommend getting an Erasmus stage/Master/PhD at a western university first. For finance, banking, economics, she could already start in Romania*; my sister worked for KPMG in Bucharest before moving to Milano, another friend of mine worked for the Bucharest branch of a french bank before finding a job at another bank in London.
The bottom line is, in EU (as in US, actually), educated people are always welcome. Brain drain and all that…
The current situation in Romania (employment wise) is actually much worse than it was 3-4 years ago, due to the economic crisis.
Once you have a job offer, getting papers for an EU citizen is relatively easy (the ones from the “newly joined” countries need permits, the ones from older countries don’t, but getting the permits for an EU citizen is relatively painless, mostly your feet hurt from waiting in line). Quite a few of my brother’s workers are from “newly joined” countries and they got regularized tot sweet when their countries joined. Working while your paperwork is being processed is legal, at least in Spain, IANAL etc. The other bro is in finance, and they just moved back to Bulgary a Bulgarian immigrant hired in Spain specifically with the purpose of setting up a new branch in Sofia.
It is not illegal for anybody from any country to work in Spain, it may require a work permit (and be illegal to work without it and without having it in process), but there is no law saying “you can’t be hired if you happen to be from XYZ”.
Yeah, I should have phrased it differently. In some UE countries, romanian and bulgarian citizens have full access to the work market, that is, they need no approval from the respective government in order to work there. In other UE countries, a work permit is needed, at least for some ‘protected’ jobs. So, when I was saying that a romanian citizen can work illegally in an EU country, I meant that he (or his employer) did not get the required work permit. Of course, in this case the employer is also breaking the law.
Thanks so much for all the help. As far as languages go, she knows Romanian, English, French, and Spanish. She is currently studying in the finance field (accountancy) and has not completed her degree.
Her first choice would be something permanent, but temporary would be okay too. Probably menial work wouldn’t be worth it.
That translation link is interesting. It looks like the current round of applications is closed, but maybe something will open up. That Erasmus program may work as well. An exchange student program could work out very well since she’d be able to look for jobs in the host country much easier.
From what I’ve read, it’s standard operating practice for employers in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to hold their foreign employees’ passports, even when they’re not doing anything nefarious. This is routinely done by legitimate and law-abiding oil companies, schools, universities, etc.
I would be careful anyway, it can be difficult to determine from a distance who is legit and who is not unless there are a lot of reports on them online …
I can get anywhere in the world in an emergency if I can get to an american military detatchment using my dependents ID, she wouldnt be so lucky.