Although there are many job opportunities in Eastern European countries such as Malta, Romania, Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania, Serbia and Albania, Sri Lankan job seekers and foreign employment agencies have had to face a multitude of issues while applying for them.
“The main reason is that the embassies of most of such countries are not located in Sri Lanka,” said Association of Licensed Foreign Employment Agencies Secretary Mohamed Farook Arshad.
He said that a wide range of job opportunities are available in Eastern European countries, from labour to engineering. However, Sri Lankans applying for those jobs have had to visit embassies in countries like India and stay there for almost two weeks to complete the relevant process since such countries’ embassies are not located in Sri Lanka.
“This process costs around Rs. 300,000 to visit India and come back. Presently there is a lot of congestion in the embassies and job seekers have to spend a lot of time and money to apply for visas. If they are not offered visas, it is not possible to recover the money they spent. We, as agencies, also cannot recover the money we paid to the agencies of the respective countries for the work permits when visas are denied.”
The association has requested the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on many occasions to take steps to intervene to establish embassies of such countries or VFS centres (a globally-recognised intermediary for visa-related processes) considering the well-being of the job seekers and foreign employment agencies but there has been no favorable response.
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