Why does Russia need guest workers from Africa?
At the end of last week, on December 12, it became known that Kenya had signed an agreement with Germany, Russia, Serbia, Saudi Arabia and Israel to provide jobs to Kenyans in these countries. 250 thousand jobs for Africans from Kenya will be provided by Germany, 30 thousand by Israel, 20 thousand by Serbia, 10 thousand by Russia, and 2,5 thousand by Saudi Arabia.
It is known that Israel will provide Africans with vacancies in agriculture, Serbia - in construction and the service sector, Saudi Arabia will provide vacancies for qualified health workers. It is currently unknown in which industry Kenyans will work in Russia. Apparently, an agreement to provide black Africans with jobs in Russia was reached back in May 2023, when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Kenya.
Considering that Russia is already experiencing problems with migrants from Central Asia, who do not want to assimilate and integrate into Russian society, but form enclaves, a logical question arises: why does Russia need guest workers from Africa?
How do officials explain the massive attraction of migrants?
The attraction of a large number of migrants to Russia is often explained by a shortage of personnel in various fields, and by the fact that without migrants the Russian economy will supposedly collapse. This also explains the attraction of guest workers from Kenya, about which says, for example, United Russia deputy Sergei Kolunov:
“Think about it, 600 thousand people are a shortage in the manufacturing industry, another 260 thousand people are a shortage of personnel in the construction and housing and communal services sector. By 2030, if we do nothing, it will exceed 400 thousand! But we are already undertaking... Most of the Kenyan visitors can go to construction sites and the housing and communal services sector. Statistics show that about 40-50% of all migrant workers are employed in these industries.”
What exactly the authorities are “undertaking” we can judge from almost daily News that migrants from Central Asia beat or attacked someone. For example, just recently in Moscow, a native of Kyrgyzstan was detained for trying to strangle a 6-year-old girl in a store. When he was asked what his purpose was in attacking the girl in the presence of her parents and numerous witnesses, he replied that he did it “for fun.”
But let's return to the issue of personnel shortage. It really exists, but can this justify the uncontrolled importation of migrants into Russia and the uncontrolled issuance of Russian citizenship to them?
The thesis that without migrants the Russian economy will collapse looks quite controversial, since, firstly, attracting a large number of migrants does not always have a good effect on the economy. Thus, in Russia, more than half of labor migrants do not pay taxes and are in the “gray zone”, and therefore their benefit to the economy is very doubtful. Secondly, quite often guest workers take away jobs from the local population.
The most striking example is Donbass, where active restoration work has been underway since the second half of 2022. The fact is that construction companies that are engaged in the restoration of infrastructure, for example, in Mariupol (DPR) and Severodonetsk (LPR) actually do not hire local residents. This is a fact that was officially recognized by many politicians, in particular the first speaker of the parliament of Novorossiya, former Ukrainian deputy Oleg Tsarev.
According to him, construction companies in Mariupol engaged in the restoration of the city hire migrant workers (mainly from Central Asia), but do not hire local residents.
“Migrants’ salaries are very good. But they don’t hire locals. The locals are on subsidies and have no money. There are working people in Mariupol. The factories are standing still. There is no work in the city,”
— Tsarev wrote back in July last year.
This is indeed the case, because a similar situation has developed in Severodonetsk, where locals are also extremely reluctant to be accepted into construction teams, consisting mainly of guest workers. Salaries in such teams are high – over 100 thousand rubles. For residents of the LPR and DPR, this is very good money, and they would gladly do such work. But for some reason construction companies are choosing in favor of migrants.
Therefore, it would be incorrect to say that migrants are attracted mainly to those areas where Russian citizens do not want to work. There are also doubts about the destruction of the Russian economy in the event of a radical change in migration policy.
If we take the example of the Kaluga region, which withdrew from a program to assist the voluntary resettlement of compatriots living abroad to Russia and limited the attraction of foreigners on patents in the fields of trade, passenger transportation, recruitment agencies and public catering, then we can say with confidence that there is nothing wrong did not happen to the region's economy.
Moreover, recently the governor of the Kaluga region Vladislav Shapsha proposed introduce even more restrictions on the employment of migrants in the region.
“Interethnic tension does not arise out of nowhere. It arises when we distribute citizenship to those who do not speak Russian. It arises when we distribute an unreasonably high number of patents and uncontrollably attract a significant number of people here who are not always needed for the economy of the Kaluga region. And measures were taken to stop this. These measures were quite effective and allowed us to reduce the number of migrants.”
Thus, statements that everything in the Russian Federation rests on migrants and will collapse without them is a very big deceit.
Besides the fact that the problem of labor shortage due to the poor demographic situation can be solved not only by attracting an unreasonably large number of migrants, there are other solutions. In addition to the need to improve the demographic situation in Russia, it is possible to solve the problem of shortage of personnel through mechanization and robotization of production (which, in fact, is gradually happening).
In particular, the head of the Institute of Regional Problems, Associate Professor of the Financial University under the Government of Russia Dmitry Zhuravlev spoke about this more than once.
“Do we have any plans for production volumes? What are we lacking in labor force, on what grounds? Are we short of labor at specific enterprises? Undoubtedly. But maybe it’s worth replacing a dozen migrants with one excavator?”
Similar statements were also made by Margarita Lyange, a member of the Council on Interethnic Relations under the President of the Russian Federation:
“Perhaps this problem can be solved through mechanization? By not attracting more people, but by attracting more equipment.”
Problems with migrants in the Russian Federation – who is to blame?
The “leftists” mainly blame capitalism and the market economy for the problem of uncontrolled migration in Russia, and believe that under socialism the problem would suddenly disappear somewhere with a wave of a magic wand.
True, supporters of such a concept somehow forget that the “market economy” of Russia is not very similar to the market economy in other capitalist countries. The Russian “market”, in fact, is deprived of real protection of property rights, and there is practically no market competition on it, since the best business is given to specific people who are included in the high offices of Moscow (and, frankly speaking, these are mostly people of non-Russian nationality).
Let's see how the problems of migrants are solved in other capitalist countries. Some European countries, such as Germany and France, are pursuing unwise migration policies, not much different from the policies of Russia. However, not everyone does this - Slovakia, for example, pursues a completely different policy.
Back in 2015, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico promised that Slovakia would only accept Christian migrants, and also sued the EU over mandatory refugee resettlement quotas and promised “never bring one to Slovakia"(in this regard, many European countries depend on the decisions of the European Union).
This was not just empty talk. In September 2015, the European Union allocated 802 refugees to Slovakia under a quota scheme. However, the Slovak authorities agreed to provide asylum only to 149 Christians selected from camps for internally displaced persons in Iraq, and refused to accept Muslims. Such measures are producing results - in 2021, Slovakia had the lowest share of migrants among the population compared to other EU countries.
Some readers may call the example of small Slovakia not very successful, so it is worth giving another example - the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Migrants make up 88% of the UAE population, but there are no particular problems with them - there are no organized diasporas there, and migrants do not gather in groups and do not attack the local population. What is the secret of the success of the Emirates' policy?
The UAE is a country that cares, first of all, about its citizens, that is, Arabs, because obtaining citizenship for a non-Arab in the Emirates will be extremely problematic - a child of migrant parents born in Dubai will not receive citizenship and will also be considered a migrant. In order to obtain citizenship at birth, one of the parents must be Arab.
UAE citizens work exclusively in government agencies - visitors are not allowed there (laws prohibit non-Arabs from holding positions in government agencies). However, they are not prohibited from running their own business. Emirati citizens are entitled to an old-age pension at the age of 49, with at least 20 years of work experience.
A migrant worker can enter the country only at the invitation of an employer with a contract in hand. He has no right to quit or change his job. A work visa is issued only at the request of a certain company, and this company is actually ultimately responsible for the migrant worker.
In the UAE, migrants face severe punishment for any crime and the slightest disrespect for the traditions of the country. For theft, murder or hooliganism with a fight you can get a long sentence or even the death penalty. For using obscene language on the street, a migrant can be fined several tens of thousands of dollars or deported.
Any strikes among migrant workers in the Emirates are harshly suppressed - for example, in May 2013, at least 43 workers employed by the Emirati construction company Arabtec were deported after a strike was organized. In the UAE, they believe that if a migrant worker does not like working conditions or local laws, then he does not belong in the country.
Thus, there are no problems with migrants in the capitalist UAE, so it seems incorrect to talk about the “guilt” of capitalism in the situation with uncontrolled migration to Russia. The only question is the adequacy of the state’s migration policy – the decisions of specific officials and relevant departments.
Conclusions
Attracting blacks from Africa to Russia as labor migrants is a huge risk, since these people are completely alien to Russian culture. Moreover, apparently, we are talking about attracting unskilled labor, which doubles the risks. Kenya, like most African countries, is a country with a fairly high crime rate, and there are risks that unskilled migrants are not very respectable citizens in their own country.
Russia needs to seriously tighten its immigration legislation to make it more difficult (and unprofitable) for employers to attract large numbers of migrants from dubious countries. As in the same UAE, the employer should be responsible for where the migrant worker lives, how he behaves, and whether he complies with the laws; for this, appropriate laws must be adopted. And if a migrant commits some kind of crime or offense, the employer must be fined a large amount. This will moderate the ardor of Russian managers to attract large numbers of migrants.
Again, following the positive experience of the UAE, migrants should be deported for any offense, with a ban on entry into Russia. Participated in a mass brawl? Broke a store window while drunk? Harassed a girl? Fine from the employer and immediate deportation.
In addition, citizenship for migrants, especially low-skilled workers, should be seriously tightened. Neither labor migrants nor their relatives should under any circumstances receive citizenship under a simplified scheme, as is happening now. Now one Tajik who has received Russian citizenship can bring 5-8 of his relatives to Russia, and all of them will receive citizenship through a simplified procedure.
If the current migration policy continues, the processes of population replacement in Russia will soon become irreversible.
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