"This paper aims to illustrate the current legal landscape and practical challenges facing immigrants in Bulgaria as regards integration into the labour market. It determines that the challenges are significant and the current legal procedures specific, demanding and often confusing. Coupled with an ill-defined and incomplete formal integration policy and systematic disregard for the rights of asylum seekers, legal employment opportunities for many immigrants are extremely difficult to access. A contextualisation of current policy through historical analysis is offered following which contemporary legal requirements and restrictions placed on immigrants in Bulgaria are presented and examined. Positive and negative aspects of the Bulgarian legal approach are subsequently explored and areas of improvement highlighted, including practical steps towards the realisation of effective, fair and humane policy. Such policy not only respects the potential and necessary contribution that immigrant labour presents to the social and economic development of Bulgaria, but also shows respect for the common humanity and universal rights afforded all human beings regardless of citizenship."

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