Russia to Raise Immigrant Worker Quotas
There are estimated to be up to five million foreign workers in Russia. The country has decided to legalize them to tap into an economy that loses billions of dollars each year due to those workers.
According to the head of the Russian Federal Labor and Employment Service, the government is preparing to write legislation that will set a quota of six million legal foreign workers. The current limit is one million.
Maxim Topilin says that the government will wait to hear from workers who wish to become legal and then work on filling the quota based on professions and qualifications.
180,000 of the 1.15 million foreigners who are currently working legally in Russia are from China. The rest are mostly from the countries from the former Soviet Union. There were estimated to be over 10 million foreigners working in Russia illegally in 2005 and they send approximately 10 billion dollars out of the country every year.
Some government officials feel that Russia would not need any immigrant workers if the labor productivity of the Russian people would increase by 40 percent. Making it easier for foreigners to come and work in Russia would increase government revenue because the officials feel entitled to a percentage of the money taken out of the country.
