The number of foreign workers in Russia fell below the level of 2000 year

The number of highly qualified foreign professionals from Europe and the United States, working in Russia, fell below the level of 2000, it is reported in the study “Expats on the Russian labor market”, prepared by Higher School of Economics and the fund “Khamovniki”.

The greatest influx of foreigners in Russia as follows from the document, was on 2004–2005, and on 2008 in the Russian Federation have been registered 35,3 thousand foreigners on executive positions in the big companies. Now – there are 7,8 thousand experts of a similar level.

The majority of expats works in the financial sector, oil and gas industry and IT sector. The companies employing foreign specialists on executive positions bring in profit to country more than 31% of GDP in 2012.

The authors of the report conclude that not having the opportunity to prepare own specialists, Russia runs the risk of falling behind in the development of high-tech profitable production.

Except quantity it has changed also the motivation of foreigners coming to the Russian Federation. As it is informed in the report, in the middle of two thousandth the great masses of foreign workers in Russia were ideologists – the experts interested in realization of the western diagrams of business dealing in the Russian realities or development of new diagrams in view of local features. Currently major part of visitors interests income and career. However and they become ever less – after crisis of 2008 the large companies try to save and employ local experts on the positions earlier occupied by expats.

The expats also lost most of the interest in the Russian market, in particular, due to political and economic instability. In addition, foreigners are frightened by bureaucratic problems specific to Russia.

According to Bloomberg, cited by RBC, even before tensions in foreign policy because of the situation in Ukraine, foreign experts have experienced significant problems with obtaining of residence permit, visas and other documents. So, the reason for the visa denial may be the slightest offense, like parking in the wrong place. However, as Russian employers note, imposing sanctions against Russia did not lead to a deterioration of the existing situation.