Russia needs one million migrant workers
At present, Russian needs one million labour migrants, the deputy head of the external migration department of the Russian Federal Migration Service (FMS), Natalia Vlasova, said at a news conference "Labour Migration Season-2006 - a Season of Change?" on Tuesday.
27 April 2006
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Russia 's demand for foreign workforce stems from "the reduction in Russia's able-bodied population, dangerous and hazardous working conditions and low remuneration of unskilled workers," she said.
"The modern society feels the demand for migrants," ILO Executive Director Kari Tapiola said. "Their number will continue to increase, and our task is to make the migration process more socially and economically favourable. Every migrant should enjoy the same rights as the citizens of the host country," he said.
The director of the international cooperation department at the Coordinating Council of the Employers' Unions of Russia, Alexander Poluektov, agrees. He believes that Russian legislators are still to do much to ensure that migrants have wages and social services equivalent to those Russian citizens enjoy.
The Federal Migration Service's priority in 2006 will be the easing (if not elimination) of illegal migration. The ultimate aim should be to help as many migrants as possible out of the shadow labor market, Vlasova said.
The FMS's experiment in legalizing some illegal labour migrants - mini-amnesty - proved effective in 2005, she said.
"Four hundred enterprises in Russia's 10 regions took part in the project, during which 7,400 migrants were legalized," she said.
"We exposed employers who had employed foreign workers illegally. Russian Tax Inspection and Federal Labour and Employment Service officials visited them and offered them to fill in all necessary documents for the workers' registration on site," she said.
According to the FMS, there are now 500,000 legal migrants and 5 million to 14 million illegal migrants in Russia.
The press conference was organized within the framework of a final stage of the ILO's project "Combating human trafficking and the forced labour outcomes in Central Asia and the Russian Federation". It is being implemented jointly by representatives of governments, employers' associations and trade unions of Russia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
(Prime-TASS News Agency).
"The modern society feels the demand for migrants," ILO Executive Director Kari Tapiola said. "Their number will continue to increase, and our task is to make the migration process more socially and economically favourable. Every migrant should enjoy the same rights as the citizens of the host country," he said.
The director of the international cooperation department at the Coordinating Council of the Employers' Unions of Russia, Alexander Poluektov, agrees. He believes that Russian legislators are still to do much to ensure that migrants have wages and social services equivalent to those Russian citizens enjoy.
The Federal Migration Service's priority in 2006 will be the easing (if not elimination) of illegal migration. The ultimate aim should be to help as many migrants as possible out of the shadow labor market, Vlasova said.
The FMS's experiment in legalizing some illegal labour migrants - mini-amnesty - proved effective in 2005, she said.
"Four hundred enterprises in Russia's 10 regions took part in the project, during which 7,400 migrants were legalized," she said.
"We exposed employers who had employed foreign workers illegally. Russian Tax Inspection and Federal Labour and Employment Service officials visited them and offered them to fill in all necessary documents for the workers' registration on site," she said.
According to the FMS, there are now 500,000 legal migrants and 5 million to 14 million illegal migrants in Russia.
The press conference was organized within the framework of a final stage of the ILO's project "Combating human trafficking and the forced labour outcomes in Central Asia and the Russian Federation". It is being implemented jointly by representatives of governments, employers' associations and trade unions of Russia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
(Prime-TASS News Agency).