Information regarding changing employer after having a Blue Card for 6 months

Question

Ithe new EU Blue Card law, it is specified in the instructions:

Flexibility to change employer - Complete a new test of the labour market if they wish to change employer or job position.

Can someone explain it what this means?

Answer 1

Labour market test means checking whether someone who is already a resident could fill the position instead of the (future) EU blue card holder. The EU Blue Card system is only supposed to be used to hire hard-to-find highly qualified employees once local opportunities have been exhausted (where local means the whole EU labour market, not only EU citizens and not only residents of the region or country in question).

Concretely, this might take the form of an authorisation from some labour agency or an obligation for prospective employers to publish a job posting through official channels and see if qualified local applicants manifest themselves before being allowed to sponsor a Blue Card application.

For the first two years, you are basically treated as if you were coming directly from abroad. After that, you have more rights and more flexibility.

This stems from article 8 (2) of directive 2009/50/EC:

Before taking the decision on an application for an EU Blue Card, and when considering renewals or authorisations pursuant to Article 12(1) and (2) during the first two years of legal employment as an EU Blue Card holder, Member States may examine the situation of their labour market and apply their national procedures regarding the requirements for filling a vacancy.

Member States may verify whether the concerned vacancy could not be filled by national or Community workforce, by third-country nationals lawfully resident in that Member State and already forming part of its labour market by virtue of Community or national law, or by EC long-term residents wishing to move to that Member State for highly qualified employment in accordance with Chapter III of Directive 2003/109/EC.