Special Report

Testing Times for Central Asian Migrants

         

Immigrant workforce seems to be hanging on as long as it can in Russian and Kazak job markets.

By Marik Koshabaev in Almaty; Mirgul Akimova, Yrys Kadykeev,Gulnara Mambetalieva and Olga Cheban in Bishkek, Mukammal Odinaeva in Dushanbe; and Azamat Kachiev in Moscow (RCA No. 557, 01-Dec-08)

As the world financial crisis continues to play out in Russia and Kazakstan, there are fears the economic downturn will have serious knock-on effects for the Central Asian states that provide these wealthier countries with cheap labour.

With manual jobs under threat, especially in the construction industry, there are fears many of the migrants will be prompted to go back to Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, making the unemployment problem there even more acute.

If these people move back in large numbers, the remittances – money they send home via the banks or in cash – would begin to dry up, with huge consequences for millions of families. There are already signs that migrants are sending less money back home because the economic climate in Russia and Kazakstan is growing harsher.

IWPR spoke to migrants in Moscow and the Kazak commercial capital Almaty, where many Central Asian migrants are employed, and asked them whether they were planning to leave. We also spoke to family members in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to find out whether they were receiving less money than before, and if so, how it was affecting them.

MIGRANT JOB MARKET ALREADY TIGHTER

Because migrant populations are fluid, with some travelling to and fro according to season and others taking up more permanent residence, plus the fact that far from all are legal immigrants, it is hard to say how many Tajiks, Uzbeks and Kyrgyz there are in Russia and Kazakstan.

Unofficial estimates put the number of Central Asian migrants working abroad at upwards of six million – at least three million Uzbekistan nationals (though some say it might be five million), 1.5 million from Tajikistan and 500,000 from Kyrgyzstan.

They work in farming, logging, catering, and transport and other services. However, the biggest single employer is the construction industry.

The case of Umar, an Uzbek from Surkhandarya in southwest Uzbekistan who works as a builder in Kazakstan, illustrates the economic disparities that drive people like him to go abroad.

“I send 300 or 400 [US] dollars home every month. In Uzbekistan, that sum is enough to sustain my family for three or four months with foodstuffs like flour and cooking oil,” he said. Umar said “almost all” the Uzbeks in his position sent money back.

The situation is complicated by the fact that some Central Asian work abroad only seasonally, returning for the winter when there is less casual work on building sites available in Russia and Kazakstan, and setting out again in spring.

The question is whether there will be jobs waiting for them in spring 2009, as it is the labour-intensive construction industry, which has seen a boom in Russia and Kazakstan in recent years but is now suffering the most immediate consequences of the financial crisis.

As Boris Kagarlitsky, who heads the Russian Institute for Globalisation and Social Trends, told a seminar in October, the financial crisis is likely to bring the construction industry in that country to a halt.

“As a result, several million construction workers, most of them illegal, from countries like Uzbekistan, Ukraine and others will lose their jobs,” he said.

If Russia has long been a magnet for workers from other former Soviet states, Kazakstan began importing labour from its Central Asian neighbours in more recent years, as its oil wealth fuelled urban development. However, starting last year, the banks which underwrote building projects and the mortgages to pay for them began making their domestic lending policies more restrictive after finding they had over-extended themselves with foreign borrowing.

In a harsher economic climate, migrant workers are liable to be first in line to go. At that point, those who have acquired the correct immigration status lose their work permits and are required to leave the host country or be deported.

Gulnora Salomova, who heads a department at the Tajik labour ministry’s research institute, explained how the system works in Russia, “When an employer ends a contract, the migrant receives notification and has to leave the country within ten days.”

Illegal migrants can of course be deported at any time if they get caught.

Among those interviewed for this report, mass downscaling of jobs was still more of a fear than a reality at this stage. As some redundancies, migrant workers reported that wages were being held up, apparently because banks lack the funds to pay out. Many are aware that things could get significantly worse.

“I don’t think cuts in migrant jobs have started on a massive scale yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they began tomorrow,” said Esen Aliev, a Kyrgyz who manages a supermarket warehouse in Moscow.

Arip Bekjanov, a cleaner on Moscow’s underground railway, said some of his colleagues had been sacked and others had left of their own accord.

“Last week, three of my colleagues were fired and two others left voluntarily after we got our wages after a two-month delay,” he said. “Now the workload has increased substantially, but we get paid the same money.”

Mirlan Tarykov, a Kyrgyz subcontractor in Moscow is concerned about the future of the building industry.

“I have a [construction] project at the moment but I worry about what’s going to happen when it finishes,” he said. “A lot of projects are being halted because of funding hold-ups. For now, we’re getting construction materials in on time, but we’re not getting wages at the moment.”

Human rights activist Gauhar Juraeva reported that one informal hiring point where Tajiks assemble on the outskirts of Moscow has become much more busy.

The workers used to line the roadside on the Yaroslavl highway, near the settlement of Druzhba, only at the weekends, but now they can be seen waiting for jobs every day of the week.

“There are more people prepared to queue along the road in the cold, to earn a small amount of money,” said Juraeva.
“They are unaware of the [financial] crisis and don’t know they are going to fall victim to it.”

FEW WORKERS MAKING EXIT PLANS

Those migrants who are aware that prospects are declining in Russia and Kazakstan are reluctant to leave, since the employment situation is still much tougher in their home countries.

A man from Uzbekistan who gave his name as Murat said he had arrived in Kazakstan without securing a job in advance.

“When I came here last year, there were jobs in construction, so this year I just came on spec and I don’t know whether I’ll find work,” he said. “The big official [state-funded] projects have closed down, but apparently there’s still work in the private sector. People are building houses and they say you can still find work.”

Whatever happened, Murat said he was not considering going back to Kashkadarya, a largely rural area in southwest Uzbekistan.

“It’s hard to get work in our village. People can’t even find the money to buy food. So although they say it’s tough in Kazakstan and there’s no work, it’s still better here than at home,” he said, adding, “I’ll see – if I don’t find work I’ll head off to Russia.”

Bricklayer Sultan Berbaev was similarly reluctant to return from Russia to Kyrgyzstan.

“There’s no point going back to Kyrgyzstan at the moment. It might be hard to find work here, but it’s just impossible at home, or else you get paid a pittance,” he said. “At least here there are some opportunities to earn money.”

Analysts interviewed by IWPR say that despite current job losses and uncertainty of employment in the months to come returning home is not the first thing the migrants would choose to do.

Hojimahmad Umarov, who heads the department of macroeconomics at a research institute attached to Tajikistan’s ministry for economic development and trade, explained that the migrant worker population is both resilient and flexible.

“It’s very unlikely that they would want to come back home,” he said. “They are a special group of people who go abroad to earn money and are interested in the long term. During a crisis, they will just change jobs. There’s massive demand for low-skilled workers, so they will shift from construction into trade and services.”

Umarov’s view is shared by commentators in Kyrgyzstan.

According to Nikolai Bailo, a member of Kyrgyzstan’s parliament, “If jobs are cut in the construction business, the migrants can easily switch to work as street sweepers, cleaners, in clothing and timber firms, or as market porters.”

In addition, Bailo said, the migrants account for only a tiny proportion of Russia’s labour market, which still had pent-up demand for workers.

“What are one-and-a-half or two million gastarbeiters to Russia? It can easily swallow them up,” he said.

Juma Abdullaev, a migration expert who headed the Kyrgyz diaspora association for many years, added that people from his country had another advantage – they were prepared to do jobs that Russians would not do.

“Certainly, many of our migrants are employed in the construction industry, but a substantial proportion do jobs where conditions are tough and which Russians won’t touch,” he said. “I think the Kyrgyz who work in the [Russian Arctic] North, in the logging business, or as cleaners will continue in work.”

RETURNEES FACE DIFFICULTIES

People who have taken the decision to return to the poorer Central Asian states confirmed that life back home was tough.

After three years in Russia, Urles recently returned to Kyrgyzstan after work on his building site was suspended due to funding problems in mid-October and all the builders were laid off.

“I spent a month without a job, and I ran out of money and was forced to return,” he said. “My wife cries and tells me to go back to Russia…. There are many families which have now been left with no income source, and winter is fast approaching.”

Azret, a Kyrgyz man recently made unemployed in Kazakstan, said, “I wasn’t upset when I got laid off. I thought I’d go to Russia since you can earn money there. But then my brother told me there’s a crisis in Moscow, too. So I;m going to Bishkek to work as a market trader. I have to feed my family.”

Uktam Khudainazarov returned to Urgench in northern Uzbekistan after he was dismissed from his job as a van driver for a supermarket in St Petersburg at the end of October.

“When the crisis began, the owners started laying off the migrants. They paid me off fair and square, but said there’d be no more work for me. They had to keep paying those staff who were officially on the payroll,” he said.

His wife also had a job in St Petersburg, but her wages were not being paid on time so she too came back to Urgench.

Khudainazarov has at least something to show for his work – a car which he plans to drive as a taxi in his home town. However, he does not plan to stay too long.

“In March, I’ll try to find a job in St Petersburg. It’s difficult to live and work there, but they pay much more money than you can earn at home,” he said.

FALLING REMITTANCES HIT FAMILIES

The relatives of many migrants report that they are receiving less money these day, forcing some to cut back on spending and others to worry about how they will get through the winter.

The squeeze is a matter of concern to local governments, as workers’ remittances do a lot to prop up the Tajik, Kyrgyz and Uzbek economies and provide many families with a means of survival. Analysts believe a reduction in this money flow would have serious effects on the ground.

Recent World Bank figures indicate that remittances were equivalent to 45.5 per cent of Tajikistan’s gross domestic product, GDP, in 2007, and 19 per cent of Kyrgyz GDP. The figures did not cover Uzbekistan, but the Russian Central Bank said that country and Tajikistan were the top two recipients of money transfers sent from Russia in the period July-September 2008.

Firuza Saidova, head of the socioeconomic and labour studies department at the Institute for Strategic Studies in Tajikistan, explained the importance of remittances, “For a country like Tajikistan where the population has a low income level, migrant remittances are the second most important source of external financing after foreign direct investment.”

Speaking at a press conference on October 28, the head of Kyrgyzstan’s State Committee for Migration and Labour, Aygul Ryskulova, said remittances had been falling since the summer, but she attributed this to a rise in the cost of living in Russia, leaving migrants on a tighter budget.

Many migrant workers reported that a mixture of price rises, wage cuts and delays, and fears for the future were forcing them to send less money home.

“Of course I will still send money home but not [the same amount] as before,” said Eldiyar Mambetnazarov, a plumber in Moscow who hails from Kyrgyzstan.

Mambetnazarov says his accommodation costs have gone up by 20 per cent and transport prices by 25 per cent since the summer.

Gulnaz Saybaeva, also from Kyrgyzstan, works as an office cleaner in Moscow. “I think I’ll be sending home 200 or 300 dollars [a month] rather than 500 dollars as I used to,” she said. “Food, accommodation and transport are getting more expensive and jobs cut have been announced in our office. I’m afraid that if they sack me, it will take longer [to find work] as everyone’s looking for jobs now.”

Nargiza Ibrahimova and her school-age siblings were left to fend for themselves in Bishkek when their parents went off to work in Russia. The children have to pay 400 dollars a month in mortgage payments on the family home, and their parents used to send 1,000 dollars a month to cover that plus school costs, food and so on.

Since the summer, the parents have suffered delays in the payment of their wages and are now sending just 500 dollars a month, leaving the children with only 100 dollars to cover all their costs once the mortgage payment has been made.

“We understand them, and we’re trying to find part-time jobs although we’re still going to school,” said Nargiza.

In the Uzbek town of Urgench, Dilfuza depends on her brother in Moscow to support her.

“Until August he used to send me 100 dollars every month. He couldn’t give any more as he has a wife and four-year-old son to support. I earn around 60 dollars a month and I’m bringing up three children on my own,” she said.

“My sister-in-law has told me my brother isn’t doing so well. He’s a stonemason and there’s no work in the winter. He says there might be no jobs even in the spring. So he is going to [stay in Moscow and] look for new work in advance.”

Dilfuza is bracing herself for a difficult winter. She said, “I fear I will be left without my brother’s support. Everything has got more expensive here – food and clothing. The money I earn plus the child benefit aren’t enough to keep my family. I don’t have the money to buy warm clothes.”

The effects of declining remittances would really kick in if large numbers of Central Asians were sacked and returned home.

Interviewed by the 24.kg news agency in late October, Vyacheslav Khamisov of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Kyrgyzstan warned that “even a ten per cent reduction [in remittances] would produce a sharp decline in living standards. Elderly people would be affected most of all.”

Abdullaev, meanwhile, predicts that remittances to Kyrgyzstan could fall by as much as a quarter.

In Tajikistan, Central Asia’s poorest state, Umarov is in no doubt that “living standards would fall and poverty increase”.

REAL IMPACT YET TO COME

At the time this report was written, there were no clear signs that migrant workers were returning en masse.

According to Bermet Moldobaeva, Kyrgyzstan programme coordinator with the International Organisation for Migration, “So far I don’t see any clear indication that migrant workers are going to return from Russia because of the financial crisis. They mainly work according to a seasonal cycle, and come back home every winter. So right now it’s difficult to assess the situation.”

However, economists in the region – as elsewhere in the world –are not predicting a rapid end to the financial crisis, and many are forecasting a bad year for both Russia and Kazakstan, with the effects of crisis exacerbated by falling oil revenues as the world price drops.

Speaking in October, Kagarlitsky of the Russian Institute for Globalisation and Social Trends said, “A slowing of GDP growth will start in the second half of this year, and from the beginning of 2009 the economy will enter a period of stagnation if not recession.”

He warned, “If the Russian government fails to stimulate the economy and leaves it to the markets, there will be mass unemployment, a reduction in earnings and closures of many big companies.”

Based on the interviews we conducted, IWPR did not find evidence of a mass exodus of “gastarbeiters” at this point. Even those who had been made redundant recently were keen to remain in the more lucrative job markets of Russia and Kazakstan, rather than returning to face an uncertain future.

Thus, crunch time for Central Asia’s migrant workers may not have arrived yet, but the delay may be a short one. Continuing economic problems in their host countries could mean further contractions in the job market, and nothing for those who come back looking for new openings next spring.

Marik Koshabaev, Azamat Kachiev, Mukammal Odinaeva and Olga Cheban are journalists based in Almaty, Moscow, Dushanbe and Bishkek, respectively. Gulnara Mambetalieva is an IWPR-trained journalist in Bishkek. Mirgul Akimova and Yrys Kadykeev are pseudonyms used by reporters in Kyrgyzstan.