Russia will import up to 1 million workforce by the end of this year to address labour shortage in the country's highly industrialised areas, a business leader said. "As far as I know, by the end of the year, 1 million specialists from India will come to Russia, including the Sverdlovsk region.
A new Consulate General is opening in Yekaterinburg, which will deal with these issues," Andrey Besedin, the head of the Ural Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told the RosBusinessConsulting (RBC) news agency.
Besedin said the migration of Indians would fill the shortage of a highly qualified workforce in the Sverdlovsk region. Sverdlovsk, with the capital Yekaterinburg, is situated in the Ural mountains and is home to Russian heavy industry and military-industrial complex, including world-famous Uralmash and T-90 series tank maker Ural Wagon Zavod.
Besedin stressed that industrial enterprises needed to increase production volumes, but the region faced a shortage of skilled workers. Some workers are deployed in the military operation in Ukraine, and young people do not go to factories, Besedin said.
He said Russia was also considering inviting labourers from Sri Lanka and North Korea, but it was a rather complex issue. Migrant workers from India began to arrive at enterprises in Russian regions in 2024. They were in particular invited by the Kaliningrad fish processing complex "Za Rodinu" against the backdrop of a labour shortage. -- PTI