MINSK, 7 August (BelTA) – The number of people leaving Belarus for work shrank nearly five times in H1 2020 year-on-year, BelTA learned from the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus.
Coronavirus lockdown could not but affect labor migration, the Citizenship and Migration Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs noted. The number of foreign employees in Belarus remained virtually the same, as Belarus did not impose a lockdown and local companies kept working taking into consideration recommendations of the WHO and the Healthcare Ministry. However, Belarusians who are working or were working abroad have faced certain difficulties. The Citizenship and Migration Department looked into this matter and interviewed individuals and legal entities involved in labor migration.
In order to collect information about the state of things with Belarusians working abroad, the department surveyed individual entrepreneurs and legal entities who run recruitment agencies for overseas jobs. The department also surveyed Belarusian employers who hired foreign nationals.
The survey revealed that nearly half (43%) of Belarusians who left the country for work through licensed recruitment agencies since January 2020, returned home before their contract expired. More than half of migrant workers from Belarus stayed abroad during the lockdown in order to resume work on their contract or to find a new source of income.
“Some licensed employment agencies involved in recruitment and job placement inside Belarus informed that before the pandemic job seekers posted about a hundred resumes on specialized websites every day, while now the number of resumes has approached one thousand. One of the reasons for increased competition is that Belarusians who planned to go abroad for work had to stay at home because of the lockdown. Indeed, in H1 2019, the number of Belarusians leaving for work with assistance of employment agencies was 5,123, while in H1 2020 their number shrank to 1,097 or nearly five times,” the Ministry of Internal Affairs informed.
The amount of remittances from migrant workers has dropped, too. According to the National Bank, the amount of remittances in Q1 2020 went down to $105,100, while in Q1 2019 the figure stood at $113,700.
Companies working on student programs informed that they did not receive any information on the continuation or discontinuation of cooperation with their German partners and on changes in deadlines for enrolling foreigners. The embassies of Finland and Germany suspended their operation, therefore Belarusian nationals could not leave because they could not complete their paperwork although they had work permits. For the same reason contracts with employers from the UAE and Qatar were suspended.
According to recruitment agencies, the biggest number of requirements was put forward by such countries as the USA, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Poland, Estonia, Russia and Finland. The work visa to Finland can be obtained only at the Finnish Embassy in Russia which closed its borders for Belarusians.
According to statistics, the coronavirus pandemic did not result in the outflow of foreign workers from Belarus. This year about 2,000 special work permits were annulled before expiry in Belarus, while in the same period last year their number stood at about 2,300. More than that, taking into consideration the epidemiological situation, in May-July the migration authorities automatically extended more than 1,400 work permits which were to expire in this period.
The biggest worker outflow was reported in the following sectors: construction (21 out of 62 employers admitted that), trade (8), agriculture (5), public catering (5) and manufacturing (5). During this period, citizens of Ukraine (20), China (13), Uzbekistan (11), Turkmenistan (4), and Poland (2) left our country.
“The findings of the survey suggest that the pandemic delivered a serious blow on labor migration and affected Belarusian nationals working abroad,” Deputy Head of the Citizenship and Migration Department Aleksandr Tatura said. He added that the Republic of Belarus remains in close contact with all the interested international stakeholders.
