The inflow of migrant workers into Russia jumped 1.6-fold year on year to 1.3mn foreigners in 1Q23 as compared with 0.84mn in 1Q22, Vedomosti daily reported citing RosStat data. Overall in 2022 3.5mn foreign nationals entered Russia for the purpose of work, as compared with 2.6mn in 2021, when the COVID-19 restrictions were in effect.
According to the Federal Security Bureau (FSD) cited by Vedomosti, the main influx of migrant workers in 1Q23 came from Uzbekistan (630,859 people), Tajikistan (349,357), Kyrgyzstan (172,591), Armenia (47,337) and Kazakhstan (34,783).
As covered by bne IntelliNews, up to 0.7mn Russians may have fled the country amid the call-up announced by President Putin in October 2022, in addition to over 0.4mn people that have left since the launch of the military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and the 0.3mn new conscripts actually mobilised for the war.
bne IntelliNews warned that the Kremlin government appears to be preparing for a second wave of mass mobilisation, while Russia is facing a mounting labour crisis as worker shortages grow and the labour market shows the lowest number of young workers since the early 1990s.
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