Uzbekistan refutes an allegation of Russian official about sharp increase in the number of labor migrants  

“Over the past seven years, the number of Uzbek citizens who come to work in Russia has quadrupled,” he said at an international investment forum in Tashkent. 

Later, the press service of the Agency for External Labor Migration denied the above statement of the Russian official. 

According to their data, labor migration, in particular the flow of people heading to Russia for work, is highly variable depending on the working season. 

“Despite the fact that the main share of labor migrants from Uzbekistan is in Russia, their number has not quadrupled over the past 7 years,” the agency stressed. 

They also released statistics. In particular, the number of Uzbek migrants engaged in temporary labor activity in the Russian Federation in 2016 was about 2 million, and currently about 1.5 million. 

The agency recalled that in recent years it has been possible to expand the geography of labor migration, in particular, attracting citizens who want to work abroad to work in developed countries of the world. 

According to them, in South Korea, Japan, Turkey, Germany, the UK and other EU countries, there is a high demand for workers in various areas of construction, manufacturing, medicine and services. 

“To date, the agency has signed agreements with 500 employers from 33 countries,” the press service concluded.