Importing foreign labor in Bosnia and Herzegovina is becoming a practice. Workers from Bangladesh, Turkey and Nepal have better working conditions and better income here than in their home countries. The number of such workers in our country is increasing year by year, and although their work and abilities do not differ from those of domestic workers, employers are clear and are asking the authorities for a solution – how to make everyone equally well off.
Bangladeshi Islam Šobigul said goodbye to his family four years ago and came to Bosnia and Herzegovina. He has been working in Bihać and Cazin for the last month. He says he likes it here and plans to stay. He likes the working conditions, he has enough money to send to his family in Bangladesh, and he has managed his job.
“I had no job, I was a teacher in Bangladesh, but when I got a good opportunity here, I immediately came. I know how to do everything and all my colleagues from Bangladesh do. Someone always helps us. We have only been here for one month, in three months we will be in a better position”.
There are currently ten of them in this company and they all have the same desire – to get citizenship in five years and bring their families. According to the director of the company, they work very well and are well received. He says he wouldn’t even know it was like that if the situation hadn’t forced him to look for work.
“This is the first time we are working with foreigners since the company has been in existence. This has already started in Bosnia, we are neither the first nor the only ones, and what I have noticed so far – they are correct and nice people, good workers, there are also good craftsmen among them. So far what they have done – I am extremely satisfied”, says Suljan Memić, owner of the company Memić gradnja d.o.o.
There are more such workers in Bosnia and Herzegovina than in previous years. They get a work visa for one year, and then extend it.
“There is a form, a request that they submit. The documentation that should be submitted along with the form is listed on that form. We and our colleagues, expert associates, review all of that. If everything is in order, it is packed and sent to the Federal Employment Service”, explains Nedžad Veladžić, director of the USK Employment Service.
Workers from Bangladesh, Turkey and Nepal have become an increasingly common option for domestic companies. It seems that they are satisfied with the conditions under which BiH the workers are not, so while the domestic workforce is fleeing to the West, Bosnia and Herzegovina is becoming someone’s West.
