The Ministry of the Interior has submitted an amendment bill to legislation concerning the entry of foreign labor into Estonia. According to the law, the application procedure for residence permits will be digitized, and the only way to communicate with the state will be via the Police and Border Guard Board (PPA).

"In the grand scheme of things, nothing will change for immigrant foreign labor," said Janek Mägi, director of the Border Guard and Migration Policy Department of the Ministry of the Interior.

Nevertheless, in the future, in order for a foreigner to receive an Estonian residence permit, their employer must be able to demonstrate at least one year of actual economic activity in Estonia.

"However, there are exceptions," Mägi noted. "It's difficult for startups to have economic activity in advance, because the nature of a startup is that it is being created; they are starting to produce, think and do something. A distinction has been made for them."

A distinction has likewise been made for film companies, given that major film projects are starting to end up in Estonia each year.

"In fact, the people involved in filming aren't actually coming to Estonia to work," he explained. "They're part of that project; they don't have an employer in Estonia or anything else. Current legislation has left this unregulated; there's a gap in the legislation here, and with this amendment we're closing that gap too."

According to the ministry official, one of the goals of this amendment is to curb the import of foreign labor into the EU via Estonia.

"This amendment has a security aspect to it, and will restrict the import of foreign labor," he noted. "It's possible to set up a company and start bringing foreign labor into Estonia. This labor may not want to remain in Estonia – Estonia is just the point of entry through which to start importing labor into the EU. This certainly has to be prevented and in some cases even inhibited."

Forecasting the impact of these changes on the labor market, Mägi says that the situation will become clearer and more understandable. At the same time, it will become more difficult to bring foreign labor into the country.

Estonian Employers' Confederation (ETKL) chief Arto Aas agrees with certain changes concerning honest taxpayers and legal labor. Even so, he believes that the issue is a broader one, and that the new government should find ways of making it easier to bring foreign labor into Estonia.

"Bringing legal people to Estonia is complicated and expensive; it is a cumbersome and time-consuming process," Aas highlighted. "And in fact, all our other neighboring countries are also competing for good people; Estonia isn't very unique or special in that regard."

He stressed that since the labor market in Estonia is up to 6,000 people short each year and this situation has been ongoing for years already, bringing in foreign labor is inevitable.

"Estonia is a country with among the strictest labor restrictions," the ETKL chief underscored. "That certainly doesn't contribute to our competitiveness and economic growth."

He sees raising the annual immigration quota as one possibility.

"This is where governments really have to have the wisdom to understand the seriousness of the situation and raise that quota," Aas added.

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