Bulgarian Industrial Association (BIA) will help Bulgarian employers find qualified specialists from countries outside the EU.

BIA offers local companies information on labour market in Macedonia, Albania, Moldova, India,the Philippines, Vietnam and Bangladesh, mediapool.bg reported. The service is free of charge.

BIA representative Vesselin Iliev said that the service represented indirect labour, helping BIA study the needs of Bulgaria’s labour market.

Bulgaria started suffering from lack of experts, especially IT specialists and engineers. A significant part of unemployed Bulgarians lack qualification, some of them even refuse to work, Iliev said.

A number of obstacles hinder local businesses from hiring foreigners. According to Bulgaria’s legislation only10 per cent of a company’s staff can be foreigners. Another hindrance is the requirement for foreigners to be given a job only if no Bulgarian applied for it.

In the end of 2006 BIA insisted quotas for foreign workers to be introduced in Bulgaria.

Inadequate university education was among the problems which led to lack of specialists, mediapool.bg said.