Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- According to the Mayor of Moscow Sergey Sobyanin, during the coronavirus pandemic, about 40% of labor migrants left the capital. Rosstat data show that the net inflow of migrants to Russia in January-September 2020 decreased by 2.4 times compared to the same period of 2019. As a result, there is a shortage of labor in the housing and utilities sector and construction, writes Deutsche Welle (Germany).

At the same time, the head of the Federation of Migrants of the Russian Federation V. Kojenov believes that the mayor S. Sobyanin announced not the most accurate figures. According to him, it was not the number of migrants who fell by 40%, but the number of issued patents. This is due to the fact that in April, the President of the Russian Federation V. Putin, by his decree for two months, allowed migrants not to renew the patent, and in June the decree was extended for another three months.

Nevertheless, according to the portal for job search "HeadHunter", the demand for workers from the spheres traditionally employed by migrants (services, utilities and construction) began to grow sharply. In particular, the number of vacancies in these areas in September-October 2020 grew by 40% compared to the same period in 2019

In addition, according to the portal, the labor market reacted to the shortage of workers by raising wages. Thus, the level of offered salaries for “migrant” vacancies is currently in the range of 550-1.1 thousand dollars, which is 65-130 dollars more than in 2019.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin plans to solve the problem of labor shortage at the expense of people from other regions. However, the Ministry of Construction believes that this is practically impossible due to the fact that Muscovites are in no hurry to go to construction sites, even for a high salary. At the same time, the Ministry of Construction, together with Rospotrebnadzor, are working on another way - to allow large developers to bring workers from abroad according to the lists. This measure, according to experts, will not allow the construction deadline to be missed.

However, due to the danger of the spread of the coronavirus, this step may be reckless. For example, in the Central Asian countries, from where many migrants come to the Russian Federation, the detection rate of new cases is quite low, which may be explained by the insufficient number of tests conducted there.