How guest workers from India, Iran, North Korea would help the Russian labor market
Rosstat presented a socio-demographic “portrait” of a typical migrant to the Russian Federation — a young married man from Tajikistan. In the statistics for 2023, which the department provides, factors unfavorable for the domestic labor market are clearly visible. In particular, the bulk of guest workers are people with a low level of education and professional skills, which in the current conditions increasingly meets the needs of employers and the economy.
Last year was marked by a serious decline in the migration flow: 560.4 thousand people came to Russia from abroad — 23% less than a year earlier. And this is the minimum value since 2013: then there were 482 thousand, as follows from the Rosstat bulletin “Number and migration of the population of the Russian Federation.” Here, of course, an allowance must be made for the fact that the statistical agency operates only with official information. As migrants, Rosstat takes into account those foreigners who have registered at their place of residence for a period of nine months or more. This data is provided to him by the territorial bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. As a result, some of the foreigners are not reflected in the statistics at all.
According to the statistics service, 55% of migrants – men, 45% women; 76% are of working age, with the predominance of people under 24 years of age. First of all, citizens of Tajikistan (31%) and Kyrgyzstan (10%) go to Russia to earn money; residents of Ukraine, Armenia and Kazakhstan each account for 9% of the total number of migrants, Uzbekistan – 4%. About 40%, mainly Tajiks, have Russian passports. 51% of immigrants are married. About 80% prefer Russian cities to living in rural areas. Finally, the main thing – low level of education: 39% of migrants have secondary general education (graduated from school), 22% have secondary vocational education (graduates of colleges and technical schools), and only 9% (including 133 doctors of science) have higher vocational education.
— Migration to Russia has a Tajik face in many ways, — says Alexey Zubets, professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation. — Today, it is the poorest country in the post-Soviet space, which has been in a state of smoldering civil war for decades. All civilization there ends outside the capital — Dushanbe, and in rural mountainous areas, people are accustomed to doing without electricity, without hot water, without medical services. Citizens of Tajikistan are driven to us by need. Plus, the country itself has built an entire system for supplying labor to Russia, a special business that is supported by large companies. As for migrants with higher professional education, they are mainly from Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. Tajiks with university degrees do not go to Russia: it is not a problem for them to get a good job in their homeland. In addition, many Russians with higher education move to us from Central Asia.- First of all, the problems that the Russian economy faced in the first half of 2023 – this is a drop in exports, rising inflation, and a decrease in the real exchange rate of the ruble in January-March by almost 15%. In addition, a number of regions began to limit migrants’ employment opportunities in certain sectors – in transport, in public catering, in law enforcement agencies. In fact, they were left with construction and housing and communal services, the two main consumers of cheap labor, and – exclusively in cities where two-thirds of the Russian population lives. However, in rural areas there are enterprises that recruit foreigners specifically to agricultural complexes, since there is no one to work there.
— Why not? As for Sri Lanka, it is, on the one hand, a poor state with a problematic, destroyed economy, and on the other hand – there are plenty of people there with higher education and valuable skills. However, it is not clear to me why North Koreans, disciplined and accustomed to the conditions of difficult work in industrial enterprises, almost never go to Russia. It is not clear why the import of labor from Iran has not yet been established, where there are a lot of great specialists, including among young people: they are definitely more suitable for our economy than immigrants from Tajikistan, who are sometimes associated with extremism, drug trafficking and other criminal matters.
— Perhaps the fact is that Russia has concluded an agreement with Tajikistan on a simplified procedure for obtaining citizenship and, accordingly, employment — Tajiks have virtually the same rights as Russians. The demand for low-skilled personnel comes mainly from the construction sector, which is doomed to stagnation in 2024 due to the expiration of preferential mortgages. You can’t put them on a machine, unlike the North Koreans, Iranians, even Kenyans, among whom there are many excellent programmers…
Of course, we also need cheap labor for construction, and here, for example, people from Bangladesh or India would be useful. By the way, Indians are very good builders, not seen in manifestations of extremism, who know how to erect high-rise buildings literally by hand, without the use of special equipment.
— Indeed, the country needs a new migration policy aimed at attracting workers from other regions of the world, not only from Central Asia. There is every reason to believe that Tajik schemes are corrupt. Unfortunately, this practice includes those Russian officials (employed in private and public business) who are responsible for receiving migrants from this country. Why did we give its citizens the right to obtain a second citizenship? Tajikistan once refused to join the EAEU, where Russia has a single trade space with other participants, including for labor. And, in fact, he won by bargaining for such a privilege. And now Russia does not know what to do with these new citizens, who for the most part do not pay taxes, do not know the Russian language, and generally cause a lot of trouble.