The Ultimate Guide to Hiring in Ivory Coast

There’s often a stigma associated with African countries in general not only when it comes to work and career opportunities, but also to the overall quality of life. Don’t let these rumors keep you from moving to the Ivory Coast if you’re an ex-pat, or expanding your business there if you’re a business owner looking for a great Western African country to grow your business.

Economy

Ivory Coast has a relatively high per capita income compared to other countries in the region and plays a significant role in transit trade for its neighboring, landlocked countries. Furthermore, the country constitutes 40% of the West African Economic and Monetary Union’s total GDP. The union is an organization composed of eight West African states, mainly francophones, within the ECOWAS (more into this later).

Today, Cote d’Ivoire is the biggest exporter of cocoa beans, and the fourth-biggest exporter of goods, in general, in sub-Saharan Africa. That being said, Ivory Coast’s economy had grown steadily since the mid-2000s, and it’s one of the biggest economies in Africa. Its economy is mainly market-based, and as we’ve mentioned above, it relies heavily on its agricultural sector - which contributes over 28% of Ivory Coast’s total GDP - to sustain its economy.

Expatriates already working in Ivory Coast tend to gravitate toward senior positions in agriculture, fishing, forestry, and also in tourism or export. As of today, there’s also a growing demand for English teachers

Part of the ECOWAS

Created in Lagos, Nigeria, on the 28th of May, 1975 through the Treaty of Lagos, the main purpose of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is to promote economic trade, national cooperation, for growth and development throughout West Africa. Currently, ECOWAS has fifteen member countries which include: C?te d’Ivoire, Benin, Mali, Liberia, Gambia, Senegal, Togo, Cabo Verde, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Sierra Leone.

The member countries of ECOWAS have three official state languages which are French, English, and Portuguese, and they also have over a thousand existing local languages including cross-border native tongues like Ga, Yoruba, Mandingo, Hausa, Fulfulde, Ewe, and Wolof.

This information will give expats a heads up about the opportunities that await them in the Ivory Coast, and for business owners, this information is quite crucial, especially when establishing a local entity and getting familiar with the country’s economic status so that one can adequately position its business there.

Work Permits

Cote d’Ivoire’s Ministry of Security is the institution that issues work permits, and expats looking to move there should apply for one before they can gain entry. In the Ivory Coast, work permits come packaged with residence permits, and they usually last for no more than a year, and they must be renewed afterward. 

When a permit has been renewed once, an application for a new work permit must still be submitted.

For someone to acquire a work permit in Cote d’Ivoire, the applicant will need to provide proof that he or she has already secured work there, and the applicant’s employer will then be required to submit copies of the applicant’s employment forms and contract to the Ivory Coast Labor Office. 

In addition to that, a medical certificate from a reputable medical institution or professional, and an updated, clean criminal record must also be provided by the applicant, and there are cases where all these documents must be translated to French.

PEOs in the Ivory Coast

There certainly are facilities for this purpose. However, they are constrained, and most foreign businesses opt to enlist the help of a Professional Employment Organization (PEO) to help with the outsourcing process. Although Ivory Coast has good relations with its neigh-boring countries and foreign countries for that matter, they still implement a strict immigration policy that filters even those applicants from their neighboring countries, and there’s a good reason for it. Cote d’Ivoire wants to keep its workforce broadly diversified to ensure that its economy would not decline.

Not Sure How to Start?

With a population of approximately 24 million, the Ivory Coast has strong historical ties with France, which is primarily the reason why there’s a quite large community of French people there, and apparently, French is the official language, but there’s also quite a lot of indigenous languages which makes Ivory Coast a viable new home for other Western African natives looking to move there. I assist expatriates to work in full compliance in C?te d'Ivoire with the support of my international network of more than 500 experts.