(Reuters) – Russia wants to widen its source of migrant workers beyond ex-Soviet republics to Asian nations including Myanmar, the Interfax news agency cited the economy minister as saying on Tuesday.
With unemployment at a record low 2.3%, President Vladimir Putin has flagged labour shortages as a problem and on Friday steelmaker Severstal criticised a regional move to ban migrant workers in construction.
Citizens from the former Soviet Union have traditionally dominated Russia’s migrant workforce.
“We should probably not only fixate on the countries from which we are accustomed to attracting migrants,” Interfax quoted Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov as saying in the lower house of parliament.
“We need to look at completely new countries because there are a lot of countries in the world that are actively, quietly, consciously exporting their labour resources,” Reshetnikov said. “We should be ready for this.”
Russia is already in discussions with Myanmar, Reshetnikov said, which has about 6 million of its 55 million population working abroad. Putin is holding talks with Myanmar’s leader and military junta chief Min Aung Hlaing in the Kremlin on Tuesday.
Heavy recruitment by the armed forces and defence industries has drawn workers away from civilian enterprises, and hundreds of thousands of Russians have left the country since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
Workers from Central Asia have described growing hostility towards them in Russia since Islamist militants from Tajikistan attacked a concert venue near Moscow in March 2024, killing 145 people.
“We have a clear understanding that without competent regulation of migration it will be very difficult for us to move forward and saturate the market with labour, and we need to look at these things openly and discuss them,” Reshetnikov said.
Along with China, Russia is a supporter of Myanmar’s military and both powers vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning alleged rights abuses in the country.
(Reporting by Darya Korsunskaya; Writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
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