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.