The influx of labor migrants to Russia in 2022 also increased from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan
In 2022, the number of foreign citizens who came to Russia for the purpose of work amounted to 3.47 million, which is a third, or 871 thousand people, more than in 2021. The figures were calculated by the analytical service of the audit and consulting network FinExpertiza.
Every fourth foreigner entered Russia for the sake of earning money, although before the pandemic only every eighth crossed the border for employment.
More than 90% of the increase in foreign labor force accounted for a total of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The number of labor migrants from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Vietnam, Moldova, Turkey, Turkmenistan and China also increased significantly.
Most often, labor migrants were registered in Moscow, Moscow region, St. Petersburg and Leningrad region, Krasnodar region, Irkutsk region, Sverdlovsk region, Amur region, Primorsky region, Tatarstan and Krasnoyarsk region.
FinExpertiza notes that with the onset of the pandemic, the flow of foreigners to Russia, including labor migrants, has fallen sharply. After the lifting of quarantine restrictions, it began to gradually recover, but did not reach the pre-Covid values of 2019.
In 2022, 13 million foreigners crossed the Russian border, of which 3.47 million people or 26.6% of all entrants indicated work as the purpose of their arrival.
This is 33.5%, or 871,000 more than in 2021: at that time, approximately one in five foreigners (21.4%), or 2.6 million people, declared employment as the purpose of their arrival.
In the corona-crisis year of 2020, the influx of foreign workers fell to 1.1 million people (11.2%, or every ninth among all those who entered). In pre-pandemic 2019, 4.1 million foreigners entered for the purpose of work (12.5%, or one in eight).
The Russian market received additional attractiveness for foreigners due to the strengthening of the ruble exchange rate, thanks to which earnings in terms of foreign currencies have increased significantly,” notes Elena Trubnikova, President of FinExpertiza.
Countries that provided the largest increase in labor migrants in 2022, thousand people.
Roots of the labor force
The influx of labor migrants from Uzbekistan increased most significantly in 2022 – by 377.7 thousand people, or by 35.1%. The number of migrant workers from Tajikistan also increased by a comparable amount (+336.7 thousand people, or +51.8%).
The number of arrived workers also increased noticeably: from Kyrgyzstan (+84.6 thousand people, or +17.7%), Kazakhstan (+62 thousand people, +118.3%), Azerbaijan (+16.6 thousand people , or + 21.1%), Vietnam (+8 thousand people, an increase of more than 9 times), Moldova (+4.1 thousand people, or + 87.7%), Turkey (+2 thousand people, or +12.9%), Turkmenistan (+1.6 thousand people, an increase of almost 100 times) and China (+1.3 thousand people, or +12.2%).
Countries that provided the largest increase in labor migrants in 2022, thousand people.
As a result, in 2022, among all foreigners who came to Russia to work, the largest share had Uzbek citizenship (41.9%, or 1.45 million people), more than a quarter were natives of Tajikistan (28.4%, or 986.7 thousand people), in third place were immigrants from Kyrgyzstan (16.2%, or 562.6 thousand people). Armenia (4.7%, or 163.8 thousand people), Kazakhstan (3.3%, or 114.5 thousand people) and Azerbaijan (2.7%, or 95.1 thousand people) also have quite significant shares. Human).
Distribution of labor migrants by country of origin, 2022
In 2022, the total number of facts of migration registration of foreign workers, including renewal of registrations and re-registration, amounted to 11.8 million. In 12.8% of cases, foreign workers were registered in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region (1.5 million registrations).
Foreigners considered the Nenets Autonomous Okrug the least attractive for work (there were registered 2 thousand times at the place of residence), Kalmykia (2.7 thousand registrations), Mari El (3 thousand), Tyva (3.3 thousand), Chechnya (4.3 thousand), the Jewish Autonomous Region (6.6 thousand), Chuvashia (8 thousand), Khakassia (9.1 thousand), Chukotka (9.9 thousand) and North Ossetia (10.2 thousand). The total share of these regions in the total number of registrations was only 0.5%.
Distribution of labor migrant registrations by region, 2022
source: asiaplustj
