Russia is grappling with one of the deepest demographic slumps in its modern history. By early 2025, the country’s population had dropped to around 146 million. Natural growth remains stubbornly negative — in 2022 alone, it fell by 0.38%, and by the end of 2024, the population had shrunk by more than 596,000. The biggest losses hit working-age men between 18 and 44, putting entire industries at risk of grinding to a halt.
Against this backdrop, migrant workers have become far more than just an extra pair of hands — they’re a strategic lifeline, propping up both Russia’s workforce and its fragile demographics. Moscow has little choice but to lean on this influx of labor to plug the gaping holes left by its own shrinking ranks.
Migration by the Numbers
Estimates suggest that in 2022, roughly 3.1 million migrants were working in Russia, about 3.7% of the country’s total workforce. Depending on the counting method, the range could be anywhere from 1.8 to 4.8 million. Most of these workers come from Central Asia and the South Caucasus — Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.
Some migrants have legal status, but a huge share remains underground, working informally. That picture became a bit clearer in 2024 when Russia rolled out a new digital registration system to track migrant flows and try to bring at least some of this shadow labor force into the light.
An Economic Engine
Plugging a Labor Shortage. According to the Russian Labor Ministry, the country faced a labor shortfall of 4.8 million workers in 2023. Projections suggest the shortage will still hover around 2.4 million through 2030. Migrants are keeping entire sectors afloat — construction, utilities, manufacturing, agriculture — jobs that would otherwise go unfilled.
One telling example came in March 2025 in the Vologda region, where officials scrapped a ban on migrant labor after local industries protested furiously about being left without workers.
Boosting GDP and Tax Revenues. Economists estimate that migrants generate 7 to 8 percent of Russia’s GDP. Between 2015 and 2021, taxes and fees tied to migrant labor brought in nearly 386 billion rubles. In industries still dominated by low-skilled manual jobs, these workers are basically the backbone — without them, production would come to a screeching halt.
A Growth Driver. Panel data covering 80 Russian regions shows that places with more migrants see stronger productivity and faster economic growth. Classic Cobb-Douglas modeling confirms that an inflow of migrants lifts overall output and helps spur investment. That effect is especially clear in infrastructure and mega-construction projects, where migrants’ relatively low wages make otherwise impossible projects happen.
New Trends, New Risks
Crackdowns on the Rise. After a terrorist attack at a concert venue in March 2024, Russian authorities clamped down hard on migration controls. In just the first half of 2024, about 100,000 migrants were deported — a 50% jump over the same period a year earlier. Tighter laws, a surge of anti-migrant rhetoric, and widespread raids have become the new normal, with no sign of letting up anytime soon.
Diversifying Sources. In 2025, Russian officials announced they’d look beyond the CIS to recruit workers, including from places like Myanmar and North Korea. By 2025, about 15,000 North Korean laborers were reported working in Russia. This approach might ease reliance on Central Asia, but it raises thorny ethical and legal questions — not least about violating sanctions.
The Dark Side: Exploitation. Roughly 13 million people in Russia — including many migrants — work in the informal sector. For migrants, that means no guarantees on pay, no legal protections, constant delays in wages, terrible living conditions, and sometimes even forced participation in military operations. This side of the Russian labor market remains a festering sore, threatening broader social stability.
The Geopolitical Angle
Domestic Tensions. The Russian government is constantly trying to square its urgent economic need for migrants with public calls to limit their presence. This split fuels ongoing social conflicts and even strains Russia’s ties with countries like Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan when their citizens are deported en masse.
A Tool of Influence. For migrant-sending nations — especially Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan — money transfers from Russia are an economic lifeline, making up as much as 30% of their GDP. That leaves these countries painfully vulnerable to Moscow’s visa and labor policy shifts. In that sense, Russia uses migrant labor as a geopolitical lever to manage relationships with its partners.
The country’s labor shortage is long-term and structural, estimated at no less than 4–5 million vacancies that no one but migrants will be able to fill in the coming years. Their contribution — roughly 7–8 percent of GDP — isn’t just symbolic; it’s the bedrock of entire industries.
Social tensions around migrants are fueled less by any real threat and more by fear of the “other.” Without integration programs and modern regulation, though, labor-market stability is out of reach.
Underground work and exploitation eat away at social cohesion, laying the groundwork for future unrest. Expanding recruitment to new corners of the globe only adds new risks — from legal to ethical to reputational.
Russia desperately needs a systematic, holistic approach to managing migrant labor. That means:
- a transparent digital registry tied to the tax system
- standardized housing and working conditions
- language and legal training for rapid integration
- intergovernmental agreements with key migrant-sending countries
- incentives for regional adaptation programs
Russia is stepping straight into a new phase of contradictions, where the hard realities of the economy keep colliding with political soundbites. Official talk of “protecting Russian jobs” is crashing head-on into the numbers: by 2023, the labor shortfall had already blown past 4.8 million and is still climbing. Projections say Russia will be short another 2 to 2.4 million workers by 2030.
It’s a paradox: despite this catastrophic shortage, unemployment in Russia is shockingly low — just 2.3 to 2.4 percent — driven not by the success of domestic employment, but by a demographic collapse, mass military mobilization, and a brain drain of qualified specialists.
Migrants today, no matter what officials claim, deliver up to 7–8% of Russia’s GDP, and their taxes alone put almost 400 billion rubles into the Russian budget between 2015 and 2021. Yet instead of building a smart system to integrate and protect these people, the state keeps doubling down on harsh crackdowns and tighter restrictions.
Ethnic Crime as a Linguistic Poison: Why Using This Term in Russia Is Not Only Harmful, But Illegal
In recent years, the term “ethnic crime” has morphed into one of the most dangerous tools for manipulating public opinion in Russia. However seductive it might seem to certain populist politicians and media outlets, this phrase fails every test — legal, logical, and moral — and directly conflicts with Russia’s own international obligations.
First, let’s be absolutely clear: there is no such concept as “ethnic crime” in Russian criminal law. A crime always has an individual perpetrator — a human being responsible for a specific illegal act — who is punished solely for their own actions. Assigning collective guilt on the basis of nationality, ethnicity, or race directly violates Article 19 of the Russian Constitution, which guarantees equality for all citizens regardless of origin, ethnicity, language, or faith.
Article 14 of Russia’s Criminal Code spells it out: “A crime is defined as a socially dangerous act committed with guilt.” There is no mention — and cannot be — of any ethnic or racial identity of the perpetrator. Any such reference would break the international conventions to which Russia is a party, including the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights. All these documents explicitly prohibit labeling or segregating entire ethnic or racial groups based on the actions of a few.
The idea of “ethnic crime” strikes at the heart of modern justice, which is built on individual criminal responsibility. Collective blame is a throwback — an ugly relic of the totalitarian repression of the 20th century.
Beyond legality, the term fails even the most basic test of logic. It equates a person’s national or ethnic identity with their propensity to commit crimes. That’s not just absurd — it’s a deliberate perversion of language.
According to Russia’s own Interior Ministry data for 2024, foreign nationals and stateless people made up just about 7.5% of all those convicted by Russian courts. That number even includes migration-related violations, which foreigners are naturally more prone to due to their status. Meanwhile, Russian citizens accounted for more than 91% of those convicted of serious or especially serious crimes, based on Supreme Court figures from 2024.
In other words, there is zero statistical basis to slap the label of “ethnic crime” on entire ethnic communities.
It is also crucial to stress that using discriminatory language and rhetoric flies in the face of Russia’s international commitments — even those Moscow now brands as “anti-Russian,” which nevertheless still protect human rights. For instance, UN General Assembly Resolution 68/237 on the Decade for People of African Descent (2015–2024) explicitly condemns any form of ethnic stigmatization, including terminology that falsely links crime to ethnicity.
The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly ruled — for example in Sejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina (2009) — that any ethnic-based restriction or labeling violates Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
If Russian officials, law enforcement agencies, or the media persist in using “ethnic crime” as a term, they may be breaching Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which bans incitement to national hatred.
The danger of “ethnic crime” language is that it fuels xenophobia and radicalization. According to a Levada Center poll (listed as a foreign agent in Russia) from March 2025, more than 41% of respondents had encountered xenophobic statements on social media, most of them rooted in attempts to “ethnicize” crime.
The Public Opinion Foundation in December 2024 reported that 37% of Russians who had heard about so-called “ethnic crime” began to trust migrants and people of other nationalities less. These numbers show just how politically toxic it is to normalize xenophobic language.
In developed democracies, the concept of “ethnic crime” simply doesn’t exist in any legal or official vocabulary. Neither in France, nor in Germany, nor in the United States — all countries with far higher levels of immigration — does the law recognize any such term. There, the principle is simple: a criminal is an individual, whether citizen or non-citizen, a person with a name and a face, not a representative of an “ethnic group.”
In 2023, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) specifically warned in its report that “terms linking crime to ethnic background threaten the fairness and equality of judicial proceedings” and may breach the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Let’s be blunt: using the word “ethnic crime” is a morally bankrupt and deeply irresponsible practice. It divides society, fuels hostility, and paints an ethnic target on the back of entire communities. In the end, it undercuts the very foundations of a rule-of-law society, where human dignity matters and collective guilt has no place.
Russian literature and culture have historically stood against collective labeling — remember Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and countless others who insisted a person answers for their own deeds, not for their bloodline or background.
This term, “ethnic crime,” needs to be decisively purged from public and legal discourse. It is harmful, unconstitutional, in violation of international law, and destroys the principle of individual responsibility that anchors both Russian and international criminal justice.
If Russia wants to hold on to any claim of respecting human rights and honoring its international agreements, it must stop legitimizing this rhetoric. Every criminal is an individual criminal — not an “ethnic representative.” That is the law, that is common sense, and that is the standard of a civilized society worth defending.
Laws That Defy Common Sense
The web of restrictions is spreading at an alarming pace. In regions from Moscow Oblast to Vologda, authorities have imposed bans on migrant labor in construction, transportation, healthcare, and education — precisely in places suffering the sharpest workforce shortages.
The case in Vologda stands out: local officials barred migrants from construction jobs, only to reverse the ban within a month after Severstal, with 120 billion rubles riding on its projects, issued stern warnings. The risk of grinding entire sectors of the economy to a halt was simply too great.
At the same time, the crackdown is only getting worse. The list of deportation triggers keeps growing, reaching down to “minor infractions,” while inspections and raids multiply. In the first half of 2024 alone, over 100,000 people were deported — a 50% increase over the previous year.
The public is being fed the notion that migrants somehow bring crime with them. But the data paints a very different picture: in 2020, only 1.6% of all crimes involved foreigners, and serious crimes made up a mere 0.5% of that.
Far more disturbing are other numbers — those showing rising rates of workplace injuries and chronic illness among migrants. Grueling shifts, no real access to healthcare, and near-total lack of legal protections have turned them into prime targets for exploitation. Meanwhile, discrimination and violence, especially in the southern regions, only fan the flames.
These tougher laws are already taking a bite out of the economy. After the March terror attack at Crocus City Hall, pressure on migrants ratcheted up even further, and migration flows in 2023–2024 hit their lowest point since the pandemic. Up to a million registered migrants have left the country, while illegal inflows dropped by 40%. Russia’s Central Bank and Labor Ministry have both sounded the alarm: this is a recipe for stagflation — a toxic mix of economic stagnation and rising prices, fueled by a simple fact: there’s nobody left to work.
These trends hit the regions hardest. Construction, agriculture, and service industries all lean heavily on migrant labor. At Severstal, at the Steelmakers’ Union, in major corporations, executives are openly warning of multi-billion-ruble project failures.
But this is not just Russia’s headache. The crackdown reverberates across Central Asia, where countries are losing vital hard-currency inflows. Declining remittances are already straining social systems in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan — and stoking the risk of youth radicalization. When people lose both income and hope, they become easy prey for extremists, a concern now echoed by foreign experts as well.
Xenophobia as Policy
For all the talk about integrating migrants, Russia has little to show in practice. Programs for education, credential recognition, and adaptation are either underfunded or exist only on paper. In the meantime, law enforcement and bureaucrats cash in on migrants’ precarious legal status, turning every inspection into a fresh opportunity for corruption.
All of this is happening against a backdrop of swelling nationalist rhetoric — from church leaders to politicians who build their careers on stoking fear of “outsiders.” Xenophobia is on the rise, and that fear is being actively cultivated.
The entire setup rests on a myth: that Russians are eager to rush in and fill all the jobs currently held by migrants. Reality has shown the opposite. Wherever harsh restrictions are imposed, officials are forced to reverse course within months. Employers simply can’t find enough workers, and when labor dries up, the economy crumbles.
In the end, this isn’t about protecting citizens’ interests — it’s a political performance, and a dangerously short-sighted one. If migration flows collapse completely, Russia won’t see a wave of local hiring; it will see deeper economic paralysis, made worse by sanctions and a shrinking population.
The real path forward is obvious:
– scrap arbitrary regional bans, especially in construction, transportation, healthcare;
– recognize that migration is a strategic resource Russia cannot live without;
– invest in genuine integration programs: language classes, medical support, credential validation;
– limit grounds for deportation to serious crimes only;
– build an open dialogue with migrant-sending countries to protect workers’ rights and create transparent, stable conditions for long-term employment.
Russia is at a crossroads: it can build a modern, humane migration system that safeguards its economic and social stability, or it can keep tightening the screws, risking stagnation and radicalization.
A strong country is not just about military parades and patriotic slogans. It is, first and foremost, about fair and reasonable rules for everyone willing to work hard, to build and strengthen the country — even if they come from far away.
If Russia pushes these people away, it risks pushing away its own future.
Migrant workers are not temporary “guests” — they are an essential, systemic pillar of the Russian economy. They keep construction and agriculture going, feed the budget, drive consumer spending, support employment, and soften demographic shocks.
Without a thoughtful, balanced migration policy, Russia is courting even deeper social and economic upheaval. Smart integration could turn migrants from a vulnerable, marginalized underclass into a true engine of growth and stability — an opportunity the country cannot afford to squander.