The recruitment and retention of talented employees are the major challenges of present-day entrepreneurship. How can your global mobility services help?
As regards global mobility, we provide our clients with various types of services that could basically be divided into two major groups according to the needs of our clients. The first group includes multi-national corporations that mainly deal with temporary secondments of staff between group companies. An example of such a global network is our firm, a member of the KPMG network of firms. KPMG in the Czech Republic may second an auditor to New Zealand or Australia to develop their talent there. It is a temporary secondment and after some time, our firm will ask the employee to come back. During the secondment, the auditor gains new experience, and can climb the career ladder.
Our second service area responds to the lack of talent on the Czech market. We assist companies that lack the necessary work force and want to bring in staff from abroad. We usually help them with the recruitment of blue-collar workers from abroad, but we can also help them resolve the lack of white-collar workers, e.g. IT specialists, by importing them.
Which specific activities does your work involve?
In the past, we have often helped companies to bring in people from Ukraine or Russia. We also provided our services to a company lacking welders and helped it to bring in welders from India and the Philippines. We also assisted a company building a factory in Brazil and needing its Brazilian engineers to get trained in its Czech branch. We thus facilitated the arrival of 30 people from Brazil to train in the Czech Republic. Furthermore, we have been working on an interesting project for a renowned jewellery company having to deal with a lack of jewellers. As skilled jewellers are available in Thailand, we have been assisting them with the recruitment of workers from this country. We are currently discussing the form of our assistance with a major Japanese corporation which will need to bring in 150 Chinese workers to the Czech Republic to install and assemble equipment for its client.
Nevertheless, even though immigration aspects are our clients’ primary need, our assistance also involves the tax aspects and legal effects of immigration. Here, we cooperate with our colleagues from KPMG Legal.
It appears that there are virtually no borders in global mobility. How do you manage to coordinate the different requirements of various jurisdictions?
Our major strength in global mobility is KPMG’s global network of firms, as we are present in almost every country. This is the added value that our clients really appreciate because they must resolve all Czech legal, tax, and other aspects as well as all other foreign obligations. Corporations use our services as we know what they should be beware of and how to coordinate their affairs in various jurisdictions. The whole picture must be completed, and one cannot get stuck on individual puzzle pieces.
We expect that you mainly solve tax issues?
We cover all issues, including taxes, social security, and health insurance in the international context. We further help companies to set wages. Sometimes we also must reflect corporate aspects, i.e., the duties of corporations relating to their status of a fixed establishment. Having to pay corporate taxes in another country has been a sort of bogeyman for corporations, it seems. Finally but importantly, we also deal with migration issues.
You mentioned examples from various countries. How is your work influenced by the turbulent geopolitical development?
We definitely feel the impact of the geopolitical development, and our clients also must adapt to the ever-changing situation. Concerning Ukraine and Russia, any transfers of people from Russia have been halted, but the numbers of workers coming from Ukraine have multiplied. Like the other EU member states, the Czech Republic introduced a temporary protection status for Ukrainians, and we helped with the registration of Ukrainian refugees. Companies approached the situation differently. Those with large branches in Ukraine solved the situation internally and usually established a team of employees helping the refugees. Other companies requested us to provide them with these services. For us it means that we must constantly monitor legislation and be aware of any changes to be able to apprise our clients with up-to-date information.
Let’s talk about immigration, a frequently discussed topic. How do you assess the conditions for the entry of foreign workers to the Czech Republic? Is immigration for work purposes complicated?
As regards immigration for work purposes, the Czech Republic has deeply bureaucratic processes in place. When discussing the issue with colleagues from other European countries, they usually say that this process takes one or two months in their countries. In the Czech Republic the immigration process takes at least six months, sometimes even nine. The major problem is getting an appointment at the Czech embassy in some countries, as foreigners must apply for a residence/work permit through Czech representative offices abroad.
How can economic migration programmes help in this context?
The relocation of foreign workers represents one of the few opportunities to satisfy the demand for a (qualified) work force on the current labour market. Therefore, programmes for support of economic migration are important and the Czech Republic offers several. Within the programme, applications can be submitted and their approval accelerated. Nonetheless, the whole process takes several months, while companies need to get the staff as soon as possible. And we then have to tell them that they very probably will have to wait for four to six months until they can bring employees to our country. Sometimes, companies cannot wait that long and as a result opt for a different, more complicated solution.
