EU zone work permit wait times (company sponsored)

[chem1]

Just curious if anyone here has any experience with this. I know it varies from country to country (I would assume longer processing times as you move further south) but I havent encountered anyone here who has direct experience with it. Of course it also depends on the person's professional background.

Im just waiting for my permit to be processed. Its been about 3 months or so now I think.
And aside from laziness, does anyone know why the process needs to take all the time it does? Like Im sure volume is involved but I dont see how volume alone could be responsible for all of the time needed for the processing.

Its just a total black box to me. My company is waiting just as I am. Just wondering if anyone has obtained a company sponsored work permit from an EU country and how long it took them in their case.

[sakura]

It's the bureaucracy, simple as that. I think the UK probably has one of the largest number of applicants in any EU country, because it has visas such as the HSMP, but even for the work permit (which most if not all EU countries have), the process can take as little as 2 weeks for straightforward applications. I think the average is 4-6 weeks.

Other countries just waste time, or don't seem to have enough people working on the job: http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewtopic.php?t=21457

(Note: I'm not suggesting it'll take as long as in the link I provided!)

[Wanderer]

I have direct experience of Germany - four and half months..........

[chem1]

I have direct experience of Germany - four and half months..........

Thanks guys. I think wander's experience of 4.5 months sounds pretty reasonable....if one was to take an 'average'.

My application is with Spain, in Andalucia. I was speaking to a friend who is a immigration lawyer in Spain but in a different province (Aragon). She says Aragon takes about 2 months to process work permit applications. So quite quickly. However, she says that it can vary from province to provine (no kidding, eh?). The fact that Im going through Andalucia will likely mean longer than 2 months. Its been about 3 or so months for me now I believe...so keeping fingers crossed every morning when I wake up when I check my email.

A person I studied with, a Venezualen, was contracted by a Dutch company. They started his work permit application in October of 2007 and he finally just received it a week or two ago. So this falls in line somewhat with Wanderer's experience. Of course they cant be taken to be correlated but one can get an idea still I think.

[Dawie]

I bet you the actual decision to grant the work permit takes no more than 5 minutes to make. Your application more than likely sits in someone's "Inbox" for 5 months until eventually they get so sick and tired of looking at it, they finally get round to processing it.

[SYH]

I bet you the actual decision to grant the work permit takes no more than 5 minutes to make. Your application more than likely sits in someone's "Inbox" for 5 months until eventually they get so sick and tired of looking at it, they finally get round to processing it.

Yep, i can attest to that. Having worked in civil service, that is exactly what happens.
If you get it back quickly, its because it was so easy on its face, they couldn't be bothered to scrutinize to find faults.
Having gone through the process either its 6 to 9 months or 3 week turnaround.