Mikhail Bogdanov’s commentary on the state of the labor market to the “Personnel Management” magazine
“Do you recruit blue-collar workers?” is a typical response from a potential client to a recruiting company’s offer of services. Therefore, in the commentary to the article on labor market trends in 2025, I would like to focus on the problem of attracting migrant labor. I consider it one of the key issues in solving the labor shortage issue.
We will not judge whether this is good or bad, but the fact remains: migrant workers are needed everywhere, ready, for the sake of earning money, to do hard work which the main population of the country refuses as unprestigious and not highly paid. Demographers claim that the development of most large countries (or blocs of countries, such as the European Union) largely depends on the size of the potential reserve of “guest workers” capable of covering the needs for unskilled or low-skilled labor. Moreover, it is preferable that these are people with at least approximately similar culture and mentality to the population of the host country.
For the United States, these are the so-called “Latinos” from Central and Latin America (their reserve is estimated at many tens of millions of people). In Europe, the British draw their reserves from former British possessions, the French — from the Arab countries of North Africa (also former colonies), and the ranks of German guest workers until recently were replenished mainly by Turks. Portugal is full of Brazilians, Angolans and Mozambicans, and the Netherlands — Indonesians (again, former colonies). The total reserve of the European Union is about 40 million people. The rich Gulf states attract many millions of people from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh as a labor force… Densely populated China stands apart, but there is a decent potential reserve from Southeast Asia there too.
Our Russian reserve is much more modest — no more than 9-10 million. Traditionally, the bulk are people from the former Central Asian republics of the USSR, and almost exclusively from three countries — Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
It would seem that we should be glad that our former compatriots from countries that are not just “friendly” but also close to us in many respects are drawn to Russia to earn money. Yes, for reasons that we will not discuss here, in recent decades they have distanced themselves from us economically, politically and culturally (including the linguistic aspect). However, the community acquired during the period of joining the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union makes the “Central Asians” much closer to us than the Arabs, Iranians and, especially, people from South Asia.
Reality, however, is developing according to a different scenario. Recently, a trend towards bringing in labor from distant countries has become clear. I will never forget my surprise at what I saw at the beginning of this year: Africans, grey from the cold, chipping away at the ice on Moscow pavements… Over the course of the year, the process has been gaining momentum, and now the Russian Union of Entrepreneurs and Industrialists (RSPP) is conducting a survey of enterprises to determine their interest in labor from the “global South”. Recruitment agencies have appeared that specialize exclusively in the supply of “distant” migrants.
At the same time the influx of migrants from Central Asia has begun to decline in recent years. This is happening for geopolitical and economic reasons, which again we will not discuss here. There is a serious tightening of control by Russian security forces due to fears of manifestations of Islamic extremism. Let’s add to this the negative public opinion, which, it seems to me, is first created by our media (for some reason), and then used as a weapon against migrants from Central Asia. As a result, confusion arises in the minds of Russians about how to treat Central Asians. Indicative in this regard is one of the recent surveys conducted among the population of provincial cities of Russia. The majority of respondents spoke out against the presence of migrants in principle, but at the same time almost half of these people admitted that they would not agree to do the “rough” work of migrant workers.
Is all this good or not? To answer this question, it is necessary to take into account all aspects of the problem — economic, political, cultural and others, both in the short term and in the long term.
Indeed, the situation with the workforce on the market is truly outrageous. There is a catastrophic shortage of construction workers and housing and communal services workers, a huge deficit of taxi drivers (that’s why prices have recently jumped so much). In this sense, it seems useful to saturate the market with a sufficient number of workers as soon as possible. It does not matter where these people come from as long as they work, filling vacancies where there is a shortage of domestic personnel, and/or doing work that our compatriots do not want to do.
At the same time, there are serious psychological barriers to migrants “from afar”. Several times, when clients contacted our company for selection for shift work in Siberia, we offered to connect them with partners from India and Bangladesh, with whom we have well-established cooperation in the relocation of migrants. After hesitation, the clients answered that, despite their openness to new ideas and the financial attractiveness of the offer, they are not ready for such a step, but they would gladly take Kyrgyz or Uzbeks. Why, we ask? Because we will find a common language with them more easily (not in the linguistic sense), and they will adapt to our team faster.
Such conservatism is quite understandable. “Our Central Asians” are more understandable for Russians; their way of life and traditions, no matter how different they are from ours, largely overlap with the worldview of Russian residents. This is especially true for fellow citizens who profess Islam, speak languages of the Turkic language group, and also have common ethnic roots. We eat their pilaf and samsa with pleasure, and they eat borscht and pelmeni. The same cannot be said about “distant” foreigners who are much more distant from us in cultural terms, and, therefore, less predictable.
To summarize what has been said above. Personally, it has always seemed to me that Russia’s closest neighbors are the “underbelly” that must be protected and on which to rely first and foremost. If any of the Central Asian migrants have problems with the Russian language and knowledge of the cultural code of Russians, it is much easier to teach them a lesson than people from distant countries. For example, it is possible to create training centers for future migrants to live and work in the Russian Federation right in these countries. Much could have been done over the past 30 years to prevent the process of alienation of the former Soviet republics from their historical metropolis — Russia. And it is not too late now.
With all due respect to the people from the countries of the “global South”, I am not sure that they will ever become an adequate replacement for us for those with whom Russians have lived side by side for centuries, in one great state.
Perhaps I am wrong in my assessments — I will be glad to hear other opinion