Central Asian Migrant Workers Leaving and Moscow Must Compensate by Attracking Workers from Elsewhere, Russian Officials and Experts Say

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 7 -- The number of migrant workers in Russia is declining; but for the time being, this category will remain dominated by people from Central Asia and the Caucasus, Russian experts and officials say. But both also suggest that such a pattern need not continue and that Russia should seek to attract workers from Asia, Africa and Latin America.

    In a new report, the Russian Central Bank says that Moscow should be able to replace the Central Asians and South Caucasians who are leaving with workers from elsewhere especially because many of the countries in the global south want to send workers abroad to earn money for their homelands (nakanune.ru/articles/123251/). 

    Consequently, these officials and experts say, Moscow doesn't need so much to recruit these people as to make them aware of the opportunities in Russia and ensure that they don't face obstacles to coming and working in the Russian economy. In the next five years, they add, these new migrants can increase their current share by as much as 20 percent.

    That is because most of those in the global south who want to migrate have the same skill sets that the Russian economy needs. And attracting them will help Moscow expand its influence in these countries, something the Russian government can only welcome, experts say.

     But there is at least one major problem: most of the potential migrants from the global south don't know Russian; and the failure of migrants from former Soviet republics where many know at least some of the state language of the Russian Federation has become a major source of tension in recent years. 

    It isn't clear how or even if Moscow intends to address the language issue with respect to the new immigrants it wants to attract; but if it doesn't do so quickly and effectively, then it is likely that the hostility many Russians now feel towards Central Asians and Caucasians will be transferred to those from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. 

    And such hostility may mean that even if the new immigrants do come for a time, they too just like the current immigrant workers from Central Asia and the Caucasus now   will soon leave and discourage any of their co-nationals from coming to Russia.