The government has submitted a bill to the State Duma proposing the introduction of new fee categories and increasing rates for existing ones related to processing documents for labor migrants. What goal does the government pursue with these changes?
New fees will be introduced for processing work permits for labor migrants. The new government bill, submitted for consideration, introduces several new categories of such fees. For issuing, reissuing a permit, or extending its validity, the fee will be 4200 rubles. For issuing a duplicate permit or making changes to it, the fee will be 2100 rubles.
It is also proposed to establish or increase a number of other state fees for migrants, including registration at the place of stay, registration at the place of residence, extending the period of temporary stay in Russia, and performing registration actions related to vehicles.
Dmitry Minin, General Director of Atlant project and construction company, who plans to hire migrants again soon, commented on the initiative:
— In my opinion, the government`s initiative is good, but it`s important that the employer is protected. There should be some amendment or addition where the employer is protected from the employee leaving. Roughly speaking, by paying money for them, they are buying their time for a certain period.
— Is the employer completely unprotected in this regard now?
— Now, in my experience, the employer is not protected. Investing money for someone, we don`t understand that the money can be lost. And when you hire 100 people, 100 people multiplied by 4 is already a rather large sum.
— Are you advocating for some kind of targeted permit?
— A targeted permit is good, but it is important to protect the employer. It would be more correct if this employee were tied to this company.
— But it seems to you, couldn`t this measure deter some migrants?
— I`ve heard the opposite, that there will now be a certain influx of migrants from India and migrants from Korea, so, on the contrary, as part of the new flow that we plan to receive, it would be logical to do it correctly right away. We are dependent on them anyway, because the volume of construction that is planned and will happen, we won`t be able to do it on our own. And those migrants we had before, indeed, as you say, were not entirely through legal schemes, they left.
Fees will be collected from both the arrivals themselves and their employers, depending on the country. Vyacheslav Volodin, Chairman of the State Duma, explained in his Telegram channel that «those arriving from visa-free countries receive a patent, the cost of which is on average 8-10 thousand rubles per month. It can be valid for a maximum of one year. Then the procedure for obtaining a patent must be repeated.»
Migrants from visa countries arrange their work permits themselves. Mikhail Zakharov, Lead Expert at the Center for Political Analysis, comments:
— Indeed, it is a quite logical situation, given the extremely low unemployment, which is rather harmful for the economy, that the government is voluntarily abandoning cheap labor from Central Asian countries. The logic here is rather more politically oriented. Our population, by and large, doesn`t really like foreigners. There is a perception that migrants commit a significant number of crimes, that migrants are, in a sense, associated with increased drug trafficking, and therefore the population, Russian citizens, largely demand that this problem be somehow dealt with. On the one hand, there is a lobby that demands more migrants for construction, for example, developers constantly ask for migrants working on construction sites not to be bothered. And on the other hand, there is a demand from broad segments of society to somehow restrict migrants.
— In your assessment, will the tightening of measures against migrants continue?
— At some point, there will simply be nowhere further to tighten; there is always a limit. Again, measures to control are being tightened, but if migrants generally don`t stop coming to Russia, then yes, it will be somewhat less comfortable for them, but as long as the economic advantages for them outweigh the temporary difficulties, there will still be a certain inflow of migrants. Another thing is that for many years now they have also been looking at other countries in the world, because, for example, people from Central Asian countries are already working well in Turkey, and Russia is no longer perceived as the only possible country to sell their labor. There is a demand for cheap labor, and there is a demand from citizens to prohibit everyone. Here is such a push-and-pull situation; I don`t see a situation where one of these two logics will prevail.
According to Vyacheslav Volodin, the State Duma will begin considering the bill on fees for migrants this week.
«This will not only increase budget revenues but also enhance control over migrants, helping to identify their actual whereabouts. This, in turn, will contribute to reducing the level of illegal migration,» Volodin noted.
