Foreign Migrants in the Russian Labor Market: the Estimate of Their Overall Number and Their Contribution to Russia’s GDP

Nowadays Russian Federation is one of the world leaders according to the number of international labor migrants it receives. Russia is among the top ten countries according to the volume of remittances from foreign workers to their countries of origin. However, it is impossible to provide an exact statistical estimate for the total number of foreign citizens working in the Russian labor market since there continue to exist certain legal regimes within the post-Soviet area concerning entry into Russia and staying there. The present research analyzes a methodology for an indirect estimate of the overall number of foreign workers in the Russian labor market. The methodology is based on the data on money transfers to migrants’ countries of origin, on the estimate of their income in Russia and on the structure of their usage. The research reveals that according to the “medium scenario” in 2017 there were about 7.2 million foreigners working in Russia, and only 2.9 million of them worked legally. The following conclusion can be made: about 60% of foreign workers in Russia are not included in the data of the Federal State Statistics Service of Russia and the General Administration for Migration Issues under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. The estimate of the foreign workers’ contribution to Russian GDP is based on the overall number of foreign labor migrants in Russia. According to our estimate, their contribution was around 6.4% in 2017

Keywords

international migration, labor migration, irregular migration, labor migrants, remittances