Abstract
This chapter examines the trends and characteristics of international labour migration in the CIS countries after the breakdown of the Soviet Union. This type of migration became dominant in the late 1990s and now defines the general character of migration in the region. The operation of selected sectors of the economy of the main host countries, Russia and Kazakhstan, and the lives of millions of households in donor countries depend on labour migration. A significant part of the flow is focused on Russia, which became the centre of the regional migration system. At the same time, an increasing amount of migrants from the states of the European part of the CIS are leaving to work in non-CIS countries in Europe. Labour migration in the CIS is characterised by a large proportion of undocumented migrants and predominance of low-skilled workers.
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Notes
- 1.
The Union State of Russia and Belarus was founded on 2 April 1996 with the aim of developing integration in the political, economic and social spheres.
- 2.
According to the first edition of this amendment, the quota was to be annually established by the Government of the Russian Federation only for foreign workers from visa countries.
- 3.
Here we speak primarily about South Korea, which is the employment destination for members of the large Korean diaspora in Uzbekistan.
- 4.
The Eastern Partnership is a project of the European Union, aiming to develop integration of the European Union with six countries of the former USSR: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
- 5.
The exceptions are foreign students studying in Russia. In the case of employment outside their educational institution, they should obtain a work permit.
- 6.
In April 2016, the Federal Migration Service was abolished and its functions and responsibilities were transferred to the Directorate General for Migration Issues of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.
- 7.
In addition, the criterion “at least one million rubles per year” applies to specialists working in special economic zones in the Republic of Crimea; the criterion “not less than 700,000 rubles a year”—for foreign citizens working in the high technology economic zone. There are no wage requirements for foreign citizens participating in the Skolkovo innovation project.
- 8.
The Customs Union was established on the territory of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia on January 1, 2010. Since the citizens of these countries were not required to obtain work permits in these member countries of the Union, they were not included into the Russian, Belarusian or Kazakh statistics of external labour migration. Since January 1, 2015, the Customs Union transformed into the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which includes, in addition to these three countries, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.
- 9.
In 2017, Moscow and the Moscow Region issued about 40% of all patents sold in Russia to foreign workers.
- 10.
A migration card is a document that is filled in by a foreign citizen upon entry into the Russian Federation. It contains some personal characteristics of the visitor as well as information on the supposed duration of stay and the purpose of the trip.
- 11.
In 2013–2014, a number of regulatory documents were adopted that tightened responsibility for violating immigration laws adopted in 2013–2014. As a result, by the middle of 2016, almost two million foreign citizens, mainly from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, were denied entry into Russia for a period of 3–10 years (Kirillova 2016).
- 12.
The cost includes the cost of a patent for one month, a certificate of passing a test in the Russian language and history, medical documents, translations of documents.
- 13.
Characteristics of labour migrants in Russia for 2017 can be found in the chapter of V. Mukomel.
- 14.
Teachers, researchers in social and humanitarian areas, artists, athletes and other specialists fall into the category of “other qualification groups”.
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Chudinovskikh, O., Denisenko, M. (2020). Labour Migration on the Post-Soviet Territory. In: Denisenko, M., Strozza, S., Light, M. (eds) Migration from the Newly Independent States. Societies and Political Orders in Transition. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36075-7_4
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