In recent months, the anti-migrant rhetoric of the Russian authorities has reached a new level.  Law enforcement officials are no longer hiding the fact that their target is people with a different skin color (one of the Interior Ministry's officials called to “lighten up the Moscow oblast so that it doesn't darken”), while officials and members of parliament are promoting increasingly extreme bans.

At the same time, the Russian economy is severely lacking workers: to solve this problem, Russia needs to attract at least three million more foreign workers, not expel them.  However, the country's appeal to migrants has been declining over the past decade.  Novaya Gazeta – Baltia explored the reasons behind this trend and why the lack of migrants will ultimately harm the majority of Russians.

In recent months, the State Duma (Russia’s lower chamber of parliament) has passed several laws that drastically complicate life for labor migrants in Russia.

Authorities have simplified and expedited the "police" (i.e., without a court decision) deportation of foreigners, and they have also devised ways to prevent deported individuals from returning to the country.  To this end, a special registry will come into effect next year for those whose migration documents have expired or have been annulled.  This registry will also include foreigners who have committed administrative offenses and are now subject to expulsion.  Those listed will become outcasts: they will be unable to drive, use banking services, register property, marry or divorce, or enroll their children in kindergartens and schools.

But this is just the beginning, and the authorities' plans on this front are much broader.  The State Duma is reviewing a package of bills on combating illegal migration — State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin named this topic one of the priorities for the fall session.

The Investigative Committee has proposed expanding the list of reasons for revoking acquired citizenship and subjecting all foreigners to fingerprinting, genomic registration, the collection of biometric data, and digital monitoring of their work and residence locations.  The Federal Tax Service proposes significantly increasing the cost of work permits for foreigners.  Meanwhile, Deputy Speaker of the State Duma, Ms. Irina Yarovaya, has called for reducing the number of medical centers responsible for the medical examination of migrants.

Additionally, almost two dozen regions have already banned or are planning to ban migrants from working in certain sectors. For example, in the Samara region, foreigners are no longer allowed to work in trade or transportation.  In Moscow oblast, starting in 2025, patent holders will have to leave jobs in schools, hospitals, and sports complexes.  More than ten regions have made it illegal for foreign nationals to work as taxi drivers.

Not enough migrants

The authorities are making life harder for foreign workers to appear as protectors of the population against the "threat" of migrant overreach and "guest worker crime."

However, according to the Interior Ministry, foreigners account for just over 4% of crimes (and this share is decreasing), with a significant proportion being non-violent offenses like document forgery and illegal border crossing.

Nevertheless, in opinion polls, the majority say that workers from Central Asia should only be allowed in temporarily or that the borders should be closed to them entirely (56% of those surveyed by Levada said this).

But tightening immigration would worsen the already dire state of the Russian labor market. As demographers point out, to avoid a worker shortage, Russia needs roughly twice as many labor migrants as it currently has.

Fewer workers – higher prices

Meanwhile, the Russian economy is suffering from an unprecedented labor shortage.  By the end of the second quarter of 2024, employer demand for workers reached a record 2.7 million people, according to data from Rosstat, which based this conclusion on companies' appeals to employment centers.

According to the latest data published by the Central Bank of Russia, the worker shortage in the second quarter of 2024 was at a record high. The financial regulator reportedly discovered this after a regular survey of more than 15,000 employers.

Equilibrium with Losses

Turning Russia into an unattractive country for foreign workers severely damages the economy: although it needs many more foreign workers (as employers themselves acknowledge in surveys), their numbers will continue to decrease.  Demographer Alexey Raksha, in a conversation with Novaya Gazeta – Baltia, along with other demographers we interviewed, pointed to this trend.

In public discussions of the numerous anti-migrant laws, authorities have never mentioned how these laws will affect economic growth — something they are supposedly supposed to care about.