The Country of Russia, specifically the City Government of Moscow is planning to decrease the quota of migrant workers in the year 2008. The original quota figure is 750,000. However, the government is planning to reduce that to a mere 250,000. That is a substantial reduction that has caused a controversy in the Federal Migration Service of Russia.
The deputy head of the FMS’s migrant labour department, Sergey Boldyrev, has stated that it is most likely not to be approved because it may affect the country negatively in two ways. Firstly, it could result in a labour shortage, and secondly, it may increase the never-ending problem of illegal immigration in the country. At the same time, even if they reduce the quota for 2008, it will definitely force employers to complain and request for an increase in 2009.
Alexey Alexandrov, the chairman of the committee on inter-regional ties and ethnic policy of Moscow announced the reduction in quota. Not only would the migrant workers quota be cut to a third, but the citizens from countries that require visa to enter the country will be decreased from 80,000 to 50,000. It was Yury Luzhkov, the Mayor of Moscow who approved of the plan. The reason for such a drastic move is that in the current year, Moscow has approved and granted about 426,000 work permits to migrant workers. However, there were only 111,000 foreign workers for whom employers have filed papers for. Thus, if the plan is approved, there will be thousands of workers who will not be able to renew their permits next year.
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