Global News Insider

There are around 2,5 million of labor migrants working in Russia, especially in the capital city Moscow. According to the statistics, in 2018 there were around 918 thousand migrant workers from Uzbekistan, 524 thousand from Tajikistan, 265 thousand from Kyrgyzstan, and 164.6 thousand and 105.3 thousand people from Ukraine and Kazakhstan, respectively. Their earnings are especially important for their home countries as the migrants send large part of their wages to their relatives at home. It is estimated that in Tajikistan, money transfers from migrants working in Russia account for about 35-37% of the country’s budget. In 2018, Tajiks sent home almost 2.5 billion dollars from Russia. The same situation is with Kyrgyzstan, another country which budget depends largely on the labor migrants’ remittances from Russia.

With the outbreak of coronavirus and with the global economy slowly sliding into recession the situation of migrants workers in Russia who are sending their earnings home could rapidly change. Uzbekistan which is the largest exporter of migrant workers to Russia has already closed its avia and road connection with other countries and this is only the beginning. There are a lot of seasonal migrant workers travelling to Russia in winter and returning back home in the spring and a new group of seasonal labor migrants coming to Russia in the spring and returning home in the autumn. With Russia closing its borders with Central Asian republics the situation of the migrants may rapidly change. Now, new seasonal workers may simply lose opportunity to earn money in Russia which has always been taken for granted. At the same time, there are bureaucratic difficulties with migrants who cannot leave Russia, as they need periodically prolong their labor patents (working permission) and with closed borders it will be more complicated. The situation has been triggered by another issue which should be taken into account. The failure of Saudi Arabia and Russia to come to an agreement on further cuts on oil production has practically led to massive depreciation of the ruble and the vast majority of migrant workers are receiving their wages in the Russia currency.

We will carefully monitor the situation with labor migrants in Russia as well as the situation with the economies of the Central Asia Republics. One of the possible following consenquences will be a serious economic crisis in Central Asian republics as they will lose significant origin of their budgets.