DUSHANBE, May 30, Asia-Plus – Tajik experts do not exclude a mass return of migrant workers from the Russian Federation and possible negative impacts of that on the socioeconomic and political situation in the country.
The presentation of a survey by the Institute of Economics and Demography of the Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan entitled
Problems of Labor Migration and Ways to Solve Them
has been given at a roundtable in Dushanbe.
Tajik researchers note that the government is taking efforts to employ returning labor migrants and provide social protection of them. “However, these measures are not enough against the backcloth of the current crisis situation,” the researchers say.
At the same time, they stress that returning labor migrants could promote progressive social changes and economic development as “the majority of migrant workers are returning with new skills and technologies.”
“Analyzing the current migration situation in Tajikistan and practically unchangeable situation of the Tajik labor migrants abroad, one can say that the process of return of labor migrants to Tajikistan will continue within the next few years at the same rate. Therefore, it is necessary to take measures to modernize the country’s economy and reintegrate returning labor migrants and members of their families into society,” the experts say.
According to data of Tajikistan’s Institute of Economics and Demography, the number of the economically inactive population in Tajikistan has increased nearly four times over the past 23 years.
In 1991, Tajikistan’s manpower resources amounted to 2.577million people, with 1.971 million of them being economically active population. In 2014, the country’s manpower resources amounted to 4.866 million people, including 2.479 million economically active population and 2.387 million economically inactive population.
A survey by the Institute of Economics and Demography note that “if the government is inactive, this factor will promote further increase in labor migration flows and put the government in an awkward position.”
Meanwhile, an article
Tajikistan: Remittance Values Fall
by Catherine Putz that was posted on
The Diplomat’s
website on January 5 this notes that while the value of remittances has indeed fallen, workers are not returning in droves as some feared.
A secondary effect of Russia’s economic downturn–a product of low oil prices and sanctions–has been a drop in remittances across Central Asia. Tajikistan relies heavily on remittances and is Central Asia’s poorest state, therefore concerns were high that remittances would fall and workers would return to a country that didn’t have job for them.
However, workers are not returning in droves as some feared, the article notes.
Over the first six months of 2015, according to the National Bank of Tajikistan (and cited by the World Bank in the Tajikistan Economic Update) remittances dropped by 32 percent in comparison to the same period in 2014. The survey found that the value of an average remittance fell 21 percent between May and September.
In 2012, Tajikistan pulled in $3.7 billion in remittances–comprising just over half of the country’s $7.6 billion GDP. Since, that percentage has fallen but not by much. The expectation was, and remains, that remittances will continue to fall but not as a product of better employment opportunities in Tajikistan but economic downturns in the countries to which Tajiks travel for work.
This explains the fact that the return migration rate has not exploded–despite the fall in the value of remittances. The survey found that the share of migrants returning, which was about 2 percent in May, rose to just over 3 percent by August and then dropped back toward 2 percent in September. This is good news for those that fear the social and potential security impact of returning hordes of migrants. But, the overall picture is of persistent bad news for Tajikistan’s long-term economic viability–Tajiks continue to work abroad but for less money. The survey’s “wellbeing” section underlines this point. In May, 67 percent of respondents said they were able to buy enough food. By September that had fallen to 60 percent after hitting a low of 56 percent in August. The slight gains made in poverty reduction over the last few years in the country are at risk as economic malaise continues to blanket the region.
