EU citizens in the UK: QUALIFIED PERSONS (JOBSEEKERS)
It may surprise a lot of you if I tell you that Jobseekers, under certain circumstances can be considered as qualified persons.
First of all, why is this important for an EEA national to be recognised as a qualified person? According to the rules, if EEA nationals want to remain in the UK for longer than three months, they should become qualified persons.
In today’s video I am going to concentrate solely on Jobseekers. I’ll explain the conditions they need to satisfy in order to remain qualified persons.
It will probably help if I start with the definition of a jobseeker for EU law purposes:
This is a person who
- Either enters the UK in order to seek employment; or
- is present in the UK seeking employment, immediately after enjoying a right to reside as a:
o worker
o self-employed person
o self-sufficient person
o student
- can provide evidence they are looking for a job and have a genuine chances of finding this employment
How Can You Prove that You are Looking for a Job?
The best proof is your registration with Jobcentre Plus, of course. If not – you can prove that you were looking for work by the way of showing: job application forms, letters of invitation to interviews, even rejection letters from employers, letters and emails that you wrote to employers or employment agencies looking for work, etc.
Genuine chance of being employed
Is another condition, which you should satisfy when proving that you were a genuine jobseeker.
This will always depend of the EEA national’s skills, qualifications and types of jobs for which they are applying and the local labour market conditions.
In all cases the UK Immigration authorities will look to see if the EEA national’s academic or professional qualifications and experience compare to the type of employment for which they are applying. Language skills are also relevant here.
The relevant period
Another important point to remember here is that jobseekers can look for work for a limited period of time. The relevant period is 91 days (3 months that is). Then we should deduct any days during which the EEA national previously enjoyed a right to reside in the UK as a jobseeker. This is unless that previous period was prior to a continuous absence from the UK of more than 12 months.
Let me give you an example here:
Peter is a national of Poland and he enters the UK on 1 June. He will automatically have an initial 3-month, unconditional period of residence in the UK (the initial right of residence). He’ll have it until 1 September. Then, if he wants to stay and work in the UK, he will have another 3 months, as a jobseeker. This period will last until until 1 December. This is provided, of course, he will be genuinely looking for work and will have genuine chances of finding employment.
If Peter finds a job within a month and then stops working at some point in future, then he will be allowed to remain in the UK as a jobseeker for two more months. However, if it takes Peter 3 months to find a job, then he will no longer be able to spend any time in the UK as a jobseeker. This is unless Peter leaves the UK for at least 12 months. Alternatively he should provide compelling evidence confirming that he has a genuine chance to find employment. This compelling evidence include a recent job offer or successful complication of a vocational course. This course should be directly relevant to the field where Peter is hoping to find a job.