Kyrgyz workers steering clear of Russia: What's going on?
The appeal of more distant job markets is increasing. And in an encouraging trend, remittances are now less important to Kyrgyzstan's economy than they used to be.
For people in Kyrgyzstan in search of a job, Russia has long been an obvious option.
And this moment looks especially propitious.
Kyrgyzstan is a member of the Moscow-dominated Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) trading bloc, a status that grants Kyrgyz nationals privileged access to the Russian labour market.
Peers from neighbouring Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, neither of them EAEU members, are forced to go through costly and time-consuming work permit procedures. Heightened security vetting following the Crocus City Hall massacre in March, which Russian authorities pinned on a group of Tajiks, have made things only more difficult for jobseekers from those countries.
Economic observers in Russia have repeatedly sounded the alarm about “personnel drought” – a result of the human capital drain exacerbated by Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Central Bank data for January-March revealed that staffing shortages have not been this bad since the late 1990s. The crisis in the services sector is particularly pronounced.
Why is it, then, that so many Kyrgyz are staying away?
Citing the most recent available data, deputy Labour Minister Bakyt Darmankul uulu revealed on Friday that around 411,000 Kyrgyz nationals are currently living in Russia. The number used to be closer to 1 million, he said.
Speaking earlier in the month, Labour Ministry analyst Esenbek Ergeshov offered a couple of explanations for the apparently waning appeal of Russia; namely, the depreciation of the ruble and the fallout of the Crocus City Hall attacks.
Other labour destinations are becoming more popular, said Ergeshov. People returning from Russia are particularly eager to get jobs in the United Kingdom, he said.
The demand has created fertile ground for con artists. Speaking to parliament, Bakyt Kudaiberdiyev, the head of the Labour Ministry’s overseas employment department, warned of the sophisticated nature of these scams.
“There are loads of advertisements on social media inviting people to go work there. They offer good conditions, and our citizens fall for these tricks. There are cases when citizens transfer money to these agencies and then end up with fake visas and airline tickets,” he said.
As far as the UK goes, though, the numbers are still modest. Almost 8,000 Kyrgyz nationals received British seasonal worker visas in 2023.
Meanwhile, there are around 65,000 Kyrgyz citizens working in Kazakhstan, anywhere between 40,000 and 60,000 in Turkey, and 36,000 in the United States. After that, the drop-off in numbers is steep. Around 14,500 in South Korea, 12,500 in Germany, 11,000 in the United Arab Emirates, and 10,000 in Austria.
The growing diversity of potential labour markets is reflected in remittance data. Kyrgyz National Bank figures from the first quarter of this year showed that cash transfers from individuals outside the Commonwealth of Independent States had increased by 38.6 percent year-on-year to $47 million. Remittances from the United States were up 40.6 percent to $15 million.
This is still small fry, though. The proportion of cash transfers from non-CIS nations accounts for only 7 percent of the total.
More time will have to pass until a clearer picture of the unfolding dynamic emerges. Without contextual information, some of the figures reported by officials are more puzzling than illuminating.
For all that the number of Kyrgyz migrants living in Russia is dwindling, the volume of remittances from there is growing.
According to National Bank data reported earlier this week, almost $690 million were remitted to Kyrgyzstan in January-March, a 12.8 percent increase on the same period in 2023. Fully $225 million were transferred in March alone, an increase of $19.5 million from the amount sent in February. Around $207.5 million came from Russia.
Of course, the ultimate dream is for the domestic Kyrgyz economy to grow and wean itself off remittances. It is making some progress in that direction, if data relayed by the Almaty-based Eurasian Development Bank is to be believed.
Where around 30 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s gross domestic product was generated by remittances across the 2010s, that proportion has latterly dropped to around 20 percent.