“If a person freely enters the country, he himself is looking for work.”
Against the backdrop of the worsening personnel shortage in Russia, the authorities are hatching the idea of managed recruitment of migrants. The goal of the corresponding federal project is clear — to unify, streamline, and take control of those processes of hiring foreign labor, which today are largely chaotic, scattered in nature, and even occur completely outside the legal framework. We talked to the head of the Center for Analytical and Practical Research of Migration Processes, Vyacheslav POSTAVNIN, about how feasible this is. The conclusions that can be drawn from this conversation are paradoxical in their own way. For example, about the notorious exam on knowledge of the Russian language. And about many other things.
— The idea itself is good and correct: we need a system that will enable employers to quickly find migrant workers, and those, in turn, employers. This will make it possible to more effectively meet the economy’s labor needs. At the same time, migrants will not wander around idle and without a means of subsistence, and will not provide a breeding ground for all sorts of crimes. At one time, most of the new members were recruited into the ranks of ISIS (an extremist organization banned in the Russian Federation — “MK”) precisely from the territory of our country. Of course, not Russians, but visitors — from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan… Today, the migrant community in Russia is a closed network structure (facilitated by information technology), a kind of parallel world, living according to its own ethnic laws, speaking its own language. All attempts to influence him by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and agencies for national affairs yield almost no effect.
— Yes, the state passes laws that migrants not only do not read, but also do not want to know. They are all accustomed to turning to their internal “solvers”. Including holders of Russian citizenship. Their alienation is also intensified by the fact that many in our country treat them with suspicion, with outright hostility, and some do not consider them to be people at all. They are constantly deceived — both by employers and law enforcement agencies. As a result, migrants stick exclusively to each other in any institutions and areas of activity — in housing and communal services, in hospitals, at construction sites, in business.
“It is necessary to create conditions under which they will be provided with guaranteed work, fair wages, and legal protection. So that they don’t get harassed in vain, and don’t extort money from anyone and everyone. It should be taken into account: about half of the visitors have a higher or secondary specialized education. But someone from this category works as a janitor or cleaner, since there is no normal mechanism for selection and referral to those sectors that require specialists with specific qualifications and skills.
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“The problem is that government agencies dealing with migration issues are not used to working individually, with each person individually. And they cannot afford it purely technically, since they do not have the appropriate information resources and large data sets (Big Data). Although the Ministry of Labor has announced some target areas, I have no reason to think that the goal will ultimately be achieved. The migrants themselves will not go to the Ministry of Internal Affairs for advice on any issue, where they risk being detained. I would also like to note that there are several quite successful models of “managed”, state-coordinated migration operating in the world. One of the best is considered to be from the Philippines, its author is Thomas Achacoso, a World Bank advisor on migration policy and a friend of mine. He told me that he spent half his life creating it. I would like such an innovator to appear here. The authorities of Uzbekistan, by the way, tried to follow the example of the Philippines, but it didn’t work out.
— Such an exam is needed only for foreigners who apply for the status of temporary residence permit (temporary residence permit), residence permit (residence permit) and citizenship. For migrant workers, this is an excessive norm. Imagine: a person graduated from school somewhere in Tajikistan, does not know Russian, came to work with us as part of free entry, and he is immediately sent to an exam. The migrant turns to fellow tribesmen from the diaspora for help, and they reassure him: “Don’t worry, the issue can be easily resolved with the help of money.” How will he then learn the language? Experts have long said that it would be much more useful to teach children Russian from the 1st grade there, in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and to train appropriate teachers in Russia and send them to these countries. During this time, a whole generation of those who know Russian well would appear there. Instead, we created a corruption scheme to collect money from migrants. Who will eventually gradually master the language themselves in five to six years. Life will force you. Accordingly, the exam is absolutely useless.
— In Moscow there is a multifunctional migration center “Sakharovo”, where 2 thousand people are received per day. But in general, there are similar structures in the country where migrants are provided with services in obtaining patents, residence permits, and so on. Depending on the region, the cost of a patent ranges from 17 thousand to 25 thousand rubles. You need to wait from 10 days to a month, and sometimes the issuance does not occur for unknown reasons. And now some other incomprehensible operator will appear. What will he do, what will he offer? For example, now in Sakharovo there is a labor exchange, and any employer can post a vacancy announcement there. And the person who receives a patent there can familiarize himself with it. However, migrants show no interest in this option. And if a similar structure is created, no matter under what name, it will not yield anything. Opening representative offices of companies in the center, keeping them there on a permanent basis, and allocating staff for this is also not an option: only large businesses can do this, but not small and medium-sized ones. In general, migrants will continue to look for work through their own internal channels, using the services of relatives and fellow countrymen.
—What does “with the elemental” mean? We have free entry. If a person freely enters the country, he himself looks for work. In the context of the current shortage of personnel, it is simply necessary to provide migrants with easy, as inexpensive entry into the labor market as possible, and to reduce the number of bureaucratic barriers. A person arrives, but he has no money, he needs to live here, pay for an apartment, for a patent, for transport, buy food. Where will he get the money for all this? It is advisable that he receive all permits within five days and begin work. Or then we need to act according to the network principle generally accepted in the world, we need to free up the hands of private employment agencies, with which businessmen, by definition, are more convenient to interact: leave a request, they will look for a worker for you. And our state has actually outlawed these agencies, classifying them as organizers of illegal migration. Is this even normal? We ourselves saw the branch on which we sit.
And then, we must not forget: Europe sees everything perfectly well, turning its face to Central Asia, opening its missions there on migration issues. In 2023, around a quarter of all seasonal harvest workers in the UK came from Central Asian countries. Japan and South Korea have been working with them for a long time. We will finish the game by forcing us to learn Russian and pass an exam… It would be better then to learn English and go to England, where salaries are higher, immigration legislation is softer, and the climate is also softer.
— Forget about Africans altogether: what will it be like for them in our climate, under the conditions of our migration legislation? If we don’t like Tajiks, then how will we treat people with a different skin color and a completely different mentality and way of life? As for North Korea, labor is expensive and fully regulated by the government. In general, everything should be calculated and an integrated system should be created. For the last 25 years, I have heard only one thing: we will now pass a law, and everyone will be fine. But it’s only getting worse… Meanwhile, the contribution of migrants to Russian GDP is estimated at 8–10%, which is trillions of rubles.
— Yes, everyone has different calculation methods. We do not have a unified information system that would track the location of foreigners and other issues related to their stay in our country. Meanwhile, a similar system today operates in 30 European countries — this is an updated SIS (Schengen Information System), designed to ensure security and control over the entry, identification and movement of travelers across the EU. They even have a psycho-behavioral portrait of each migrant. But we don’t know where the visitor is at the moment, or what he’s doing. At the same time, in Russia there are many excellent specialists in migration statistics — both in the Ministry of Labor, and in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and in research centers. But there is no system…
— They don’t interact at all. We do not have a state migration policy, there is no strategy under which we could put an appropriate structure and recruit people. It is impossible that all issues of labor migration should be dealt with by law enforcement agencies — the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB, the Prosecutor General's Office, which are a priori designed to fight crime. Like it or not, they see every migrant as a potential lawbreaker. But here there is a completely different task: not control and supervision of visiting foreigners, but facilitating their adaptation, integration into Russian society, into the labor market.
— This is called an “organization set”. The system is not working. It has existed for six years already, and within its framework a tiny number of migrants come to Russia, there are literally only a few of them. There is a system on paper, but not in real life. It turns out like this: people were promised certain conditions, but on the spot they saw a completely different reality and fled. The legislation allows: I came, worked for several months, didn’t like it, went back. The main reasons why organizational recruitment does not work are free entry and the lack of a labor export system in Central Asian countries.
— Our migration registration is 70–80% corrupt. Without knowing the language, many simply buy Russian passports, work licenses, registration, work books with the necessary work experience… Another problem: very often the deadlines for issuing patents fixed in legislation (after filing documents) are not met — five working days, if a foreigner has a TIN, and ten if there is no TIN. Why are there delays of a month or more? If a person is allowed into the country, then there is no need to check him further; you will not collect any new information about him. Why does the Prosecutor General's Office calmly look at obvious violations of the law and the labor rights of migrants? As a result, this drives the migrant, who needs to live on something, into the gray sector. The majority of honest employers do not want so much: firstly, that the employee has all his documents in order, and secondly, that he meets the requirements for his qualifications.
< p>— Fingerprinting and similar means of control cannot be delegated to another state. This is part of our sovereignty. The intergovernmental agreement with Tajikistan stipulates that a medical examination is optional; it is enough to provide an extract from the medical record. We ignored this point and are forcing everyone to undergo a medical examination. But since we are talking about protecting public safety related to the issuance of permits, this is probably correct.