Russian businesses plan to massively hire workers from Africa and India due to labor shortages
Amid an acute personnel shortage caused by the war, Russian companies have begun actively considering options for hiring workers from remote regions of the world.
According to The Moscow Times, a survey of more than 300 business representatives found that every eighth employer is ready to hire personnel from African countries, including the Central African Republic, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe, as well as from India. In addition, about 21% of companies are considering employing citizens of China, North Korea, Thailand, and Cambodia in an attempt to compensate for the lack of workers in the domestic labor market.
Currently, foreign specialists are already employed by 37% of Russian companies, most of which are large businesses. The overall willingness to consider foreigners for vacant positions has risen to 43%, whereas before the full-scale aggression only 5% of companies reported hiring foreigners. Experts note that the interest in personnel from distant foreign countries for mass positions has become a forced measure due to the significant reduction in the working-age population and mobilization processes in Russia.
Traditional sources of labor remain CIS countries, which 38% of employers still rely on, but competition for these workers is forcing businesses to seek alternatives in more exotic regions. Only one-fifth of market participants do not plan to attract people from abroad at this time. This transformation of the labor market indicates a deep structural crisis in the aggressor’s economy and an increasing dependence of Russian industries on low-skilled migration from Asia and Africa.
The labor shortage in Moscow amounts to 400–500 thousand people. This discouraging information for residents of the aggressor country was reported by Mayor Sergey Sobyanin. According to him, these are “vacant positions that are not provided with workforce.”
Russia is negotiating with Afghanistan regarding the recruitment of labor migrants from that country.
