International students from outside the EU often work as student assistants without the required work permits. This could result in significant fines for the UG.
If a student doesn’t have a permit, the faculty responsible for the appointment has to report this to the university’s Immigration Service Desk, which then applies for the permit from the UWV, the employee insurance agency.
However, the HR department recently found out this isn’t always reported. An unannounced inspection by the labor inspectorate could result in a fine of 8,000 euros per employee.
Preventing fines
No fines have been issued recently, according to UG spokesperson Anja Hulshof. ‘But we obviously want to prevent this from happening.’ All managers have now been informed of the rules.
Anyone with the annotation ‘Permitted to work. No work permit required’ on their residence permit does not need a work permit. Students with the ‘study’ annotation do. Students from within the EU don’t need a permit at all.
The process of applying for a work permit usually takes four to six weeks. After that, students are allowed to work a maximum of sixteen hours a week or full-time during the months of June, July, and August.