The process of applying for a work permit may be scary even for some companies, which is why many are reluctant to employ people from outside Europe – they prefer to search for Polish or EU residents instead. For instance, if there is a demand for a Spanish-speaking employee, it would be unreasonable to wait for months for someone from e.g. Mexico until they get all their papers, while they can employ a Spanish national instead, and right away.
The whole process of getting the work permit is rather lengthy. In case of a normal procedure, one of the required documents is “Information from the governor with jurisdiction over the registered office or place of residence of the employer about the lack of opportunities to meet staffing needs of the company hiring the alien on the basis of the records of the unemployed and persons looking for work, or a negative result of recruitment organised for the employer, issued not earlier than 180 days before the application, if it is required”.
Source: Mazowieckie.pl
In English: the employer needs to ask the local government to confirm that it’s been impossible to find a Polish person for the job. This involves publishing a job offer for at least 2 weeks, making it available to local candidates. If no one applies, then the government issues a confirmation that the company can indeed employ a foreigner. Only then, with this paper in hand, the company can apply for a work permit.
However, there exists a list of professions for which the voivode issues a work permit without having to obtain information from the governor, which definitely speeds up the whole process.
The list of professionals who can get their work permit much faster includes:
- Programmers
- IT system analysts & IT system administrators
- Electrical engineers
- Elderly caretakers
- Bus drivers
- Doctors & nurses
- Many construction workers: masons, carpenters, electricians, heavy equipment operators, iron-workers
- etc.
You can find the whole list here (in Polish).
