PHILIPSBURG–In 2016, a total of 3,000 of the 23,000 workers who were insured under the Social and Health Insurances SZV were undocumented.
The figures were provided by Health Minister Emil Lee during the continuation of a meeting of the Central Committee of Parliament on the draft amendments to the civil code regarding employment. Lee was responding to questions posed in an earlier round by Member of Parliament (MP) Chanel Brownbill, who asked how many persons were in the local labour force with legal residence and labour contracts.
The Minister said the only figures that can be used to illustrate this would be based on figures from labour inspections and SZV. An employment permit is not a requirement to be insured under SZV. Persons who are working five days a week consecutively are eligible for coverage for SZV medical insurance; however, persons who are working 16 hours, four days a week are not.
The coverage is based on ZV legislation and is regulated per day not hours. Lee said with the introduction of the National Health Insurance NHI, this will no longer be the case. In providing the statistics from SZV, he said these do not include persons who are not in compliance.
He said also that of the 789 labour inspections done in 2016, there were a total of 131 critical violations, which included one or more immigrant employees without valid documents and no insurance.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/68653-3-000-undocumented-workers-under-szv
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