Bashkiria expects new influx of labor migrants

Bashkiria expects an even greater inflow of labor migrants. It is planned that about 22,000 foreign workers will receive patents for labor activity in the region.

According to the approved Migration Policy Concept for 2022-2025, it is supposed to attract more and more workers from far abroad to the republic (as a rule, these are highly qualified specialists) - from 300 this year to 360 people in 2025.

At the same time, the share of qualified specialists should be at least 90%. The task is to create conditions for 26,000 people to receive patents in 2024–2025. The average price of a patent for the labor activity by foreigners for the current year is 4.4 thousand rubles. If 22 thousand people receive them, then 96.8 million rubles will go to the budget.

As Bashinform News Agency reported, for the first time in eight years, Bashkiria ended 2021 with a migration increase in the population. According to the results of 11 months of 2021, the migration increase amounted to 7963 people, according to statistics.

As Vladimir Barabash, Chairman of the Council under the Head of the Republic of Bashkortostan on Human Rights and the Development of Civil Society Institutions, emphasized, Bashkiria was traditionally a place of attraction for migrants from neighboring countries. During the pandemic, their number decreased due to the closure of borders and other anti-epidemic measures, now the situation is recovering.

The large-scale construction projects planned for the 450th anniversary of Ufa include the new Eurasian Library, the construction of which is estimated at 4 billion rubles, the Wrestling Center (5.3 billion rubles, the Mathematical Lyceum for 350 students and 250 beds (2.9 billion), a school for 2,200 students in Kuznetsovsky Zaton (2 billion rubles), a new building and equipment for war veterans hospital (6 billion rubles) and other equally significant facilities.

The migration flow is also replenished by international students who come to study at Bashkir universities.

"Undoubtedly, creating the Eurasian REC will strengthen this trend," Andrei Gaifullin, Candidate of Sociological Sciences, Associate Professor, Head of the Department of Sociology and Youth Work at Bashkir State University, said.

So, in 2021, there were 5,000 international students in Ufa universities. Thanks to the Eurasian REC, their number is expected to increase to 15 thousand people in 2030. In the meantime, Ufa universities earn about 400 million rubles a year from international students.

Experts record: by mid-2021, the number of arrivals exceeded the number of departures. For the first time since 2000, a positive balance of interregional migration (migration within Russia) has been observed in Bashkiria, which amounted to 265 people. In addition, for the first time in five years, the region has seen an increase in educational migration - plus 2,740 people.

The head of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Bashkiria, Timur Khakimov, attributes the positive growth in migration to the implementation of many investment projects and major programs.

Meanwhile, the region may face a serious challenge in the coming years - a shortage of labor resources. It is no coincidence that 2022 has been declared in the republic as the Year of Modernization of Vocational Education, Decent Working Conditions, and Labor Dynasties.

"We are building factories, creating new technoparks, but there are not enough workers," the Head of Bashkiria Radiy Khabirov said today at a briefing session in the government. "At the upcoming meeting with the participation of the heads of professional colleges, we will discuss the issues of providing labor resources for our enterprises and organizations."

As the Head of the Republic stated earlier, the economy is developing quite intensively, new jobs and new professions are appearing.

Meanwhile, according to the Ministry of Economic Development of Bashkiria, over 3,000 new jobs were created last year. Of these, within the framework of priority investment projects of the republic - about 1.1 thousand. In general, all this clearly affects the increase in the population of Bashkiria.