Ministry of Agriculture and Russian Railways wanted to import labor migrants to Russia for charter trains for seasonal work in the field. It is assumed that this will solve the issue of lack of labor for the needs of the agro-industrial complex. This is reported by Kommersant with reference to the source.
According to the interlocutor of the publication, this issue was discussed at a meeting in the ministry last week. The Ministry of Agriculture has confirmed that they work out the possibility of filing collective applications for the organization of railway flights with agricultural producers and regions. In 2021, it was planned to use 38.2 thousand migrants in seasonal work.
In March 2020, against the background of the coronavirus pandemic, Russia has banned the entry of foreign labor. In March of this year, the authorities allowed to bring workers with more than 250 people and revenue over 2.5 billion rubles. However, even then the Berry Union warned the head of the Ministry of Agriculture Dmitry Patrushev that these criteria are not suitable for the participants of the industry. In May, they were canceled to attract workers from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
Now the workers may arrive in Russia only with aviation, which significantly increases the transport costs of market participants, noted in the Ministry of Agriculture. There they added that the regions have already asked to work out the possibility of organizing transportation of employees by trains, which will preserve the growth rate of the agro-industrial complex. The Ministry of Agriculture requested information about the amount of applications for the amount of labor.
Earlier in June, Deputy Prime Minister Marat Husnullin said that the Russian government examines the issue of simplified importation of migrants and their mandatory vaccination. He explained that it was very important to support the construction industry, and it would not be able to do without foreign workers. According to Husnullin, migrants are ready to work at 12 hours at construction sites for 50 thousand rubles per month, and this allows you to seriously reduce the cost of construction. If you refuse migrants, then the consumer, according to the calculations of the Deputy Prime Minister, will have to pay more because the construction will rise in price for at least 12.5 percent.
With the shortage of labor, Russia faced against the background of the coronavirus pandemic. Only in Moscow, according to the calculations of the authorities, the lack of labor migrants is estimated at 300 thousand people, which is particularly acutely affected by construction.