Good afternoon to all of you,

My name is Valentine.

I am employed in Germany since 17.04.2001, and I will lose my job
as to 01.09.2004, I have got already the notice letter.

My current work permit is tied with my current employer, which, I believe, is the case of every one of us.

My continuous efforts to get a new position resulted in possible employment by a small company in NRW. It is not a dream company, but it is anyway better, than becoming unemployed.

Today I came to a local employment office (Arbeitsamt), where I have been told, that in case I would want to take up that new employment, my prospective employer will have to file a report about free vacancy in his company to Arbeitsamt, and they will check, whether or not
there is a German person, or any other foreigner who has free access to a labour market (for instance, acknowledged refugee), who could fit to take up that position.
Only in case, there will be no one from those categories, I may be granted a new work permit.
They call to this procedure “economic check” (Wirtschaftsprüfung).

And that is my question: as far as I know, we have unrestricted right to switch employer within 5 years of duration of the Green card freely, provided the new job is in line with the Green Card regulation, which in turn means, the new job must be within IT sector.
And we have to go through this Wirtschaftsprüfung only once at the beginning.

Does anyone have any kind of experience with job change?

Any information / reference / link will be much highly appreciated.

Best regards,

Valentine.

<--My current work permit is tied with my current employer, which, I believe, is the case of every one of us.-->

Not really!! it depends, some have no such bindings. May be this could eb the reason why the arbetisamt wants a Wirtschaftsprüfung.


<--as far as I know, we have unrestricted right to switch employer within 5 years of duration of the Green card freely, provided the new job is in line with the Green Card regulation, which in turn means, the new job must be within IT sector.And we have to go through this Wirtschaftsprüfung only once at the beginning. -->

true! during a job transfer you have minimum 3 months to more than 1 year to switch between employers depending on how long you worked with Green Card. I think the situation you are now is an unlucky situation because of 2 reasons,
1) Some local government offices are facing huge unemployment problems filing the gaps so they might be strict in examining the priority levels of employees. Again this is dependant on the person in the gov. office who is dealing your case. You might be caught with a wrong person, sorry this is how currrently the GC system si running.
2) your employer is not willing to bring your case directly to arbeitsamt for processing your papers.


<--Does anyone have any kind of experience with job change?-->

this is not my experience but just a guess so take it as a tip if it helps. otherwise someone will come up with a right answer.

regards,
Nitin

Hi Valentine,

The "Arbeitsamt" you are dealing with, is absolutely INCORRECT..
and you are totally CORRECT with your claims..

Here is the related part from so called "Greencard" law(IT argv):

§ 6.3 Nach Erteilung der erstmaligen Arbeitserlaubnis können weitere Arbeitserlaubnisse UNÄBHANGIG von der Arbeitsmarktlage erteilt werden.

and here is the link for the complete law:
http://www.aufenthaltstitel.de/it_argv.html

I assume you fullfill minumum salary requirements.. if this is the case.. then there should be NO problems for you to change a job in 5 years time..

I would try to show them the law itself or get in contact with ZAV and maybe ask them to write an offical notice to this local "Arbeitsamt"

I remember some posts regarding ZAV.. do a search in the forum..

HTH

Lacrima

Hi Nreddy,
Hi Lacrima!

Thanks a lot for your prompt reply.

I the meantime, in last 2 hours, I have been in contact with
Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Arbeit.

They advised me, there are no barriers at all for me to get a new work permit as long as principal law requirements are met.

It seems to me the local clerks in employment office either are not aware as to exact content
of the GC regulation, or just try to close some gaps (for instance, unemployment statistics), hoping I will not dig deep enough to find out correct information.

Thanks again.

Best regards,

Valentine.