Russia has been experiencing a severe labor shortfall for several years now. Despite a cooling economy, unemployment remains at a record low of about 2 percent, with the Labor Ministry estimating Russia will need 10.9 million new workers by 2030. With Russian society aging rapidly, it’s unclear where these men and women will be found. 

For a long time, this problem was eased by mass labor migration from former Soviet countries—particularly Central Asia. However, this is no longer such an effective mechanism. Central Asian workers now have more attractive destinations than Russia, and the Kremlin continues to introduce discriminatory measures against Central Asian migrants in a bid to distract Russians from problems caused by the war in Ukraine. 

As a result, there have been serious discussions about fairly radical solutions to Russia’s labor shortages: in particular, an official scheme to bring in migrants from places where labor costs are lower—like India, African countries, and even Afghanistan. However, there are major questions over the practicalities of such a scheme.

In the 1990s and the early 2000s, the birth rate in Russia collapsed due to demographic waves and a socioeconomic crisis. The effects of that smaller generation entering the labor market are now being felt. According to the State Statistics Service, unemployment in Russia has been unusually low—under 2.5 percent—for several years. That is projected to continue until at least the 2030s, when the next, more numerous generations of people born in the late 2000s and mid-2010s enter the labor market.

It would once have been possible to compensate for such a lack of workers by encouraging migration from Central Asia. However, Central Asian migrants have become more discerning, and economic stagnation, financial instability, and Western sanctions mean Russia has become less attractive when compared to labor markets in East Asia, Europe, and the Persian Gulf. There are also political reasons, with the Russian authorities increasingly indulging in anti-migrant rhetoric and tightening legal restrictions on Central Asian workers. The needs of the labor market have been outweighed by the Kremlin’s desire to distract Russians from war-related problems.

As a result, businesses are being asked to consider taking on migrants who have been brought to Russia in a centralized manner and especially for that purpose. The countries being looked at to supply these migrants are India, Bangladesh, some African nations, and Afghanistan. The reasoning given by officials is that Russia should not be dependent on a small group of Central Asian countries for its migrant labor, and that organized “shipments” of migrants will make it easier to replenish the workforce. 

However, these discussions appear to ignore how the labor market works. Labor from Bangladesh or India might be cheaper than that from Uzbekistan or Tajikistan, but labor flows from Central Asia to Russia are decentralized, making them much more flexible. A migrant from Tajikistan, for example, would pay to travel to Russia, find a place to live via the Tajik diaspora, and quickly locate a job in a sector with a high turnover (like construction, delivery, or housing and utilities). In contrast, migrant flows from further away would require an organized recruitment process and extensive administrative support.

Here arises a fundamental paradox: Low incomes in the countries where Russia might seek migrants do not necessarily translate into cheap labor costs for Russian employers. Migrants who need a visa to enter Russia immediately become mired in an inflexible bureaucratic system, where the annual quota of work permits issued fails to keep pace with the needs of the market.

There are other complications as well. To hire a group of workers from India, for example, a Russian company would need to assess its staffing needs a year in advance, wait for government approval of work permits, pay for flights, hire translators, organize language training, and provide accommodation. All this paperwork—and the risks of losing money if contracts fall through—would be borne by businesses.   

Such financial and administrative hurdles are an insurmountable barrier for small and medium-sized businesses. Accordingly, organized migrant recruitment would only be profitable for large infrastructure projects or state-owned companies, where the priority is a manageable labor supply and budgets are big enough to absorb extra costs. In other words, migrants from India or Africa could only be used in addition to migrants from the post-Soviet world—not as a replacement.

Even less convincing are claims by Russian officials that importing migrants from more distant countries would reduce anti-migrant attitudes in Russia. It’s true that such sentiment increased following the terrorist attack on Moscow’s Crocus City concert hall in 2024, which was carried out by Tajik nationals—but anti-migrant rhetoric from officials has also played a significant role. Xenophobia toward Central Asians has risen in Russia, including harassment, hate speech, and violence. Ethnic profiling and arbitrary detentions have also become more common.  

The idea that migrants from further away would be met with less hostility is a fallacy. Xenophobia will not disappear by changing the nationality of migrants. Indeed, the opposite might turn out to be true. Migrants shipped in by the state would likely be housed together and have less contact with locals, while more significant language and cultural barriers would mean integration took place much more slowly. 

Diversifying the number of countries supplying migrants might be appropriate for large projects. But Central Asian migrants cannot be replaced. In any case, Russia’s demographic problems are so serious that they cannot be solved by immigration alone. 

Instead, Russia needs to look at boosting labor productivity and increasing the economic activity of elderly people, those with disabilities, and young people. At the same time, the Kremlin should also be taking better care of its existing workforce, making emigration a less tempting option, and reducing the demands of the armed forces and the defense sector.

Even so, Russia’s human resources are limited. Without an inflow of cheap labor, the economy will have to adapt to labor shortages, rising costs for businesses, uncontrolled wage growth, and the stagnation of entire industries. Bringing in migrants from further abroad will not solve any of these problems. It will just be an expensive experiment with little real impact.