CAP argues strategy vital to ensure companies aren’t short-staffed
CAP, Portugal’s confederation of farmers, is calling for a plan to be drafted to attract immigrants, along with a housing pact that mobilises all vacant State and local authority buildings.
The confederation warns that without such a plan Portugal could face a serious shortage of workers.
“The lack of a programme to attract immigrants could mean a shortage of professionals in the future, which would be dramatic for the companies that need them,” CAP’s president Álvaro Mendonça e Moura told Lusa.
The plan should have “clear and swift” rules for issuing work visas and providing job opportunities, tax benefits and ensuring housing availability, he said.
Otherwise, immigrant workers will prefer other European countries that can offer better salaries and “more attractive” residence rules.
A former ambassador, Mendonça e Moura also called for measures to penalise private individuals for abandoning buildings for more than a year.
The government recently approved amendments to the Aliens Act, which put an end to the “expression of interest” as the minimum formality needed to enter Portugal to look for work.
The government also has plans to increase staffing in consular posts, particularly for dealing with applications for temporary residence visas.
So far, CAP has not received any reports on the impact of these changes on the sector, but Mendonça e Moura acknowledged that there may be agricultural workers with employment contracts and who have been paying social security contributions for some months, who may be affected “by the impossibility of regularising themselves as a result of this legislative change.”
CAP, nonetheless, that it is sure that in these cases, the government and recently created AIMA – the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum – will find a way to integrate these workers.
Medonça e Moura once again expressed concern about the “poor functioning” of AIMA, stressing that resolving the issue of “pending regularisation and family reunification processes” must be a priority for the agency and for the government.
On June 25, he told members of parliament that it is essential to consider, in statutory talks between representatives of employers and unions, a plan to attract immigrants and not just to control the numbers of people arriving here.
Source: LUSA
