As an update to our recent blog post on Ghana and increased immigration compliance in Africa in general, employers in the oil and gas sector are starting to give feedback from the field on Ghana’s new immigration rules. The new labor market testing rules for companies in the oil and gas industry, effective September 1, 2014, require a test of the local job market to confirm there are no able, willing and/or qualified Ghanaian workers. The challenge for companies is that the rules are silent on how many advertisements and how long they should run. The rules indicate that at least two print advertisements must appear in the Daily Graphic and Ghanaian Times, so employers at a minimum should meet this threshold and may want to consider running two print advertisements over two consecutive days in the Daily Graphic and Ghanaian Times to show a reasonable recruitment effort, thereby avoiding a challenge from authorities.

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Photo of Ian Macdonald Ian Macdonald

Ian R. Macdonald Co-Chairs the firm’s Labor & Employment Practice’s International Employment, Immigration & Workforce Strategies group. He focuses his practice on developing, assessing and managing global mobility programs for multinational companies on a range of challenges affecting the movement of people capital

Ian R. Macdonald Co-Chairs the firm’s Labor & Employment Practice’s International Employment, Immigration & Workforce Strategies group. He focuses his practice on developing, assessing and managing global mobility programs for multinational companies on a range of challenges affecting the movement of people capital domestically and internationally, including secondment agreements, benefits transferability, local host country employment concerns and immigration.

Ian and his team work closely with companies to manage and modify, where needed, corporate immigration programs to maximize efficiency, service and regulatory compliance levels. He is experienced with the full range of business immigration sponsorship categories (visas and permanent residence), anti-discrimination rules to reduce or eliminate risk of employment litigation, employer sanction cases, and I-9 and E-Verify compliance. Ian assists clients with establishing risk-based performance standards (RBPS) and Department of Homeland Security protocol, providing risk assessment assistance to corporations subject to Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) and assisting clients with ITAR/Export Control compliance within the immigration context.

Ian has developed strategic relationships abroad that he utilizes when working with clients to ensure compliance with foreign registration requirements. He is experienced with analyzing complex global mobility opportunities on country-specific matters to facilitate the transfer of personnel. Ian is also experienced in counseling employers on immigration strategy as well as immigration consequences of mergers and acquisitions, reduction in workforces, and furloughs.

Prior to joining the firm, Ian worked for the United Nations, various non-governmental think tanks and corporate law firms in London, Washington, D.C., New York and Atlanta.