Hi Everyone,

My situation in nutshell: I am hungarian male (EU8), work in IT and came to Zurich in 2008 July with a 1 year L permit. In 2008 June I changed job to a permanent one so I could renew my L permit again, now it is valid till 2010 July.

My girlfriend (hungarian also) moved here recently and she is on "jobseekers L" permit now (actually it's just a residence permit which does not entitle her to get a job. As tourist she has exactly the same rights)

Explanation on L permit AFAIK: one difference is between EU8 and non-EU is that EU8 L permit is not linked to a company or canton. Also we get 1 year L permit for the first 30 months even if we have permanent job. After 2.5 years we should get B. Permits for EU8 are still subject to quotas.

My questions are:

1) Is any chance for her to get ANY job here? She has worked for 6 years as team assistant in a bank in Hungary and speaks fluent German and English, but as she is not a specialist in any field, none of the companies are willing /trying/ to apply for work permit for her. This was the outcome of all the 4 interviews she had (mostly at banks in similar jobs). Now she is getting more desperate and I am without advice too. The emmigration officer was sarcastic and had two advises: 1) why does not she go back to Hungary and try to find job there with her experiences... 2) why do I not marry her ? Indeed this exists as a last resort, but from the time of presenting the marriage certificates it will take 4-5 months to get the same L work permit as I will have at that time... But we wanted to avoid such constraining circumstances and plan it a little more...

She tried at McDonalds and Nordsee but she was rejected because there are always candidates already who hold work permit. (Also, McDonalds wants B or C permit and does not accept L. We were told by the emmigration office that my L work permit should be fully equal to B in employer's perspective... How can we convince McDonalds to take care of our truth?)

The main question is, how and what kind of job could she get?

At her last interview, when a bank was seeking for a Hungarian speaking(!) assistant, she was told that she can not be considered because there are other hungarians with work permit. The only one idea was to seek for job where the hungarian language might prove the reason to get the permit. Besides, the HR person said, the qoutas of L were reduced by 50% for 2010, meaning chances are even less.

2) We are about to appeal my L permit to change to B, so if we go for marriage, she had bigger chance to work at McDonalds... What reasons should we enlist in our application? Mentioning marriage might be a marriage of convenience in eye of emmigration office.. (shall we refer to the words of one of their officer..?)

Well, we thank you for everyone who took the time to read this long text and contributes with constructive ideas. We look forward to the replies!

My German was really poor when I arrived to Switzerland and I didn't have permit, just these normal 3 months for a job hunt. I applied to a lot of jobs, mostly in the same field and got a lot of rejections.
Then I ended up in a job agency when I was about to give up and they provided me great opportunity in a completely different field (pharma) for temporary bases, witch lead to full contract.

4 interview aren't that much, so hang in there. Of course she has a change of getting a job.

Has she gone to any job agency? Can she consider any other cities than Zurich to start with?

Hi Begga,

Thanks for your quick reply on Saturday night

She is looking for job for 7 months now (around 100 applications were sent, only for the relevant positions) and this resulted only that 4 interviews. In most cases she gets prompt reply because of the lack of work permit, but finally the interviews have ended with the same.

Of course she is in touch with plenty of agencies in the financial field... That's why she became interested in non-banking jobs, like fastfood restaurants or anything.. anything else what you maybe advise.

Sorry Begga, it's really late Saturday night, I did not carefully read your post.

Of course, she is interested anywhere in 1 hour travel time to Zurich, and does not stick to the banking field. It's incredible that you had success, especially because Iceland is non-EU yet.. Which was that agency? When did you manage to find the job? Before or during the crisis?

Iceland is in EFTA, the conditions for access to job market are equivalent to those for "old" EU citizens. This means practically no obstacles at all, in contrast to the quite restrictive conditions applied to people from EU-8(+2).

I came just before the big-bang hit.
But it is true what Sarik says, we're in EFTA just like Switzerland, so that it self was not a problem.
I got my job through Express Personal, but I think they are only in Basel and Bern. They were really helpful though, I owe them a lot. If she hasn't tried them yet, she should. They have good connection to the pharma industry in Basel at least.

Explanation on L permit AFAIK: one difference is between EU8 and non-EU is that EU8 L permit is not linked to a company or canton. Also we get 1 year L permit for the first 30 months even if we have permanent job. After 2.5 years we should get B. Permits for EU8 are still subject to quotas.

Hi,

As far as I know 30 months rule is only related to time-limited contracts, if you have time limited contracts during last 30 months you can apply for B permit based on this fact even if your next contract is time limited too.

But If you have got unlimited contract with swiss employeer from the beginning you should obtain B permit as your first permit.
Could you give me the source of this information?
'Also we get 1 year L permit for the first 30 months even if we have permanent job'

Regards,
Miroslav