The entrepreneur Todor I. Blajev has been successful in applying legislative changes to attract highly skilled Bulgarian workers to the most important infrastructure sites in Spain.

SAMARCO: BULGARIAN WORKERS IN THE BIGGEST SITES

Todor I. Blajev, an engineer with over twelve years of experience in providing engineering consultancies to Spanish companies for the markets of Eastern Europe, has founded in Spain the company Samarco. The company business is to provide to Spanish employers, such as Dragados and ACS, teams with highly skilled personnel.
“It all started when companies as Asfaltos naturales de Campezo and Semi of the holding ACS won public procurement for European funded site in Sofia – they were convinced of the quality of Bulgarian skilled workers and turned to the Bulgarian embassy in Spain in view of checking the possibilities for employing Bulgarian personnel in Spain”, says Todor I. Blajev, president of Samarco.

Legislative change

The preparation for the first teams was very long and tedious because the Spanish legislation presented many obstacles. The process took usually ore than six months. However, the Royal Decree № 842/July 2001 changed the legislative requirements and since then has been introduced the special and extraordinary work permit type “А”, allowing foreign workers to be employed in big infrastructures as AVE for a period of one year. The legislative change induced Todor I. Blajev to found his own company. At this time more than hundred Bulgarian skilled workers and specialists work on some fifteen sites scattered all over Spain. Among completed sites are the Basque highways, completed by casing and shuttering workers hired by Asfaltos naturales de Campezo; skilled masons for the civil engineering company Areche and specialists electricians for Semi, who work on various railways sections near Logrones, Quenca, Alicante, Avila and near Getafe of Metrosur in Madrid. Elcem has hired specialists for connection and cable works on big electricity lines, wile Cymi, branch of Dragados, hired specialists in contact networks in Madrid and Sevilla. The most demanded profiles are for specialists in contact networks, erectors of big lines and traction substations, casing and shuttering workers, workers with marble and steel erectors, although latest trends indicate that companies are looking for specialists in the field of power stations and shipbuilding.

Test
In order to reach Spain candidates have to pass somehow difficult tests. The Bulgarian company T&T Project, holder of license from the Bulgarian Ministry of Labor, selects the personnel. All candidates pass through five tests selection process: professional, medical, legal, technical and linguistic. „We have commissioned a linguistic course, where we teach minimum of one thousand words, out of which one third is engineering terminology. In addition we have developed job specific psychology tests and we make field tests to all candidates in order to be sue in their professional skills", explains Mr. Blajev. According the president of Samarco, the key is to form highly skilled work teams consisting of between 5 and 35 persons.