By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
With thousands conscripted into the army to fight in neighbouring Ukraine, several more thousands escaping military mobilization and migrating abroad, Russia currently lacks highly skilled labor for offices and unskilled labour for its industries, agriculture and construction. Reports indicated Russian employment agencies are seriously recruiting all kinds of employees, both skilled and unskilled, from Africa.
HeadHunters, a recruitment agency’s report announced in mid-July that a boom in attracting workers from Africa against the backdrop of a shortage of personnel across Russia. According to the report, in the first half of 2024, Russian companies significantly increased their activity in searching for employees in Africa.
In particular, countries such as Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Cameroon became the leaders in terms of the growth rate of vacancies in annual terms, while the number of advertisements in a number of European countries and the United States, on the contrary, decreased. Together with experts, RBC looked into the reasons for the growing popularity of employees from Africa and the main difficulties in hiring workers from abroad.
African hiring boom
According to HeadHunters’ data for the first half of 2024, seven out of ten foreign countries with the largest increase in vacancies from Russian organizations are African countries. If in the first half of 2023 in each of them one could find no more than 500 vacancies from Russian employers, then in the first six months of this year the number of job offers has increased multiple times, in some cases tens of times, analysts noted in the report.
Thus, the number of vacancies increased the most in Kenya – 39 times (from 161 vacancies in the first half of 2023 to 6.4 thousand vacancies in the first half of 2024). A number of other African countries have also seen a significant increase in the number of places offered, although more modest in absolute terms. Thus, in Zimbabwe the number of vacancies increased 15 times (to 165), in Cameroon – nine times (to 130), in Zambia – eight times (to 224). In addition, a sharp increase in the number of vacancies was recorded in Algeria (seven times, up to 1.7 thousand).
Among non-African countries, the leaders in terms of growth in the number of vacancies were Albania, Pakistan and Belgium. In addition, in 2024, Russian companies posted vacancies for the first time in countries such as Nepal, the Bahamas, Barbados, Malawi, Iceland, Sierra Leone, Gabon and the Central African Republic (CAR). The total number of vacancies in the listed countries in the first half of the year reached almost 300, analysts indicated.
The fact that the geography of migration to Russia could expand at the expense of African states was previously predicted in an interview with RBC by the director of the Institute of Demographic Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Marina Khramova. She also admitted that in future, migrants from Southeast Asian countries, such as Thailand or the Philippines, could be attracted to the domestic labor market.
Categories of workers for recruitment abroad
The composition of the most in-demand categories of employees when hiring from foreign countries among Russian employers has not changed over the year – these are customer service managers, IT specialists and marketers, as follows from the data on invitations to vacancies. The top ten also included specialists in the field of art and mass media, administrative personnel, workers and builders.
At the same time, the greatest increase in demand was shown by vacancies for workers in science and education – in the first half of the year, the number of invitations for employees in this field from abroad doubled. The number of invitations for foreign workers increased by 68%, agricultural specialists – by 63%, employees in the field of raw materials extraction and construction – by 53 and 51%, respectively.
It is necessary to understand that the search and invitations to employees for vacancies do not fully reflect the typical portrait of a migrant, since their hiring in general varies quite a lot depending on the specialty and region, noted Danina. “We can say with confidence that attracting migrants to positions as workers and construction workers (in general, low-skilled positions) is traditionally typical for Central Asian countries and this year for a number of African countries,” she explained.
At the same time, highly qualified specialists with knowledge of the specifics of local markets and business for the positions of marketers and account managers are sought all over the world, and the search for top managers this year was concentrated in the UAE, Serbia, Turkey, Thailand.
The number of African specialists who enter Russia is growing every year, noted Vsevolod Sviridov, an expert at the Center for African Studies at the Faculty of World Economy and International Politics at the National Research University Higher School of Economics. “African labor migrants occupy completely different niches in the labor market: some are actually employed in fairly low-skilled professions, for example in construction, work in warehouses, in agriculture, while others occupy high management positions in large Russian companies, the expert on Africa pointed out to local Russian media.
A recent example is Timothy Musa Kabba, a graduate of the Mining University in St. Petersburg, who worked as a geologist for Russian oil and gas companies for almost ten years, and he is now the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sierra Leone, recalled Sviridov.
Difficulties in hiring foreigners
Employment of foreigners is associated with a number of complicating issues, notes Danina. For example, if we are talking about hiring workers or construction workers with relocation to Russia, then the main burden lies in organizing logistics (due to the lack of direct or regular flights with Russia), obtaining quotas, and the presence of language and cultural barriers in work teams. When working with highly qualified specialists from non-CIS countries, who are often hired without relocation, there may be problems with organizing financial payments, added Danina.
Migration regulation in Russia also has its own specifics, notes Sofia Luneva, a lawyer in the labor law practice at BGP Litigation. Thus, for foreigners who enter on visas, the registration procedure is the most complex, as it requires obtaining a permit to attract foreign labor for the company, an invitation from the employer to enter and a work permit for the foreigner (in a number of areas, their number may be limited by quotas).
An alternative could be the status of a highly qualified specialist – if it is available, the employee is not subject to quotas. The downside of this simplified procedure is increased costs for the employee. Registration of visa-free foreign citizens is much simpler in terms of documents.
At the same time, all migrants are required to have documents confirming that they have undergone fingerprinting, photography and medical examination. And in any case, regardless of the status of a foreign worker, the employer is obliged to notify the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs about the conclusion/termination of an employment contract within no more than three working days. In conclusion, workers and employees are required in the Russian Federation. (Report made with addition materials from Russian media).
