Director of the Federal Service for the Execution of Punishments (FSIN), Alexander Kalashnikov, yesterday suggested that Russian convicts could be hired to help correct the huge shortage of labor migrants in Russia due to the COVID-19 crisis, according to Kommersant.
According to him, convicts could be used to replace foreign workers in the construction sector. Kalashnikov suggested that prisoners construct new housing facilities to live near the construction site they are working on.
“It will not be a Gulag,” the FSIN director said, noting that that the housing would be brand new and would provide good conditions. Working prisoners will also be paid.
“It is better for prisoners to build dormitories for employment,” said Kalashnikov. “They will stay there. They will work there too. And we will solve the problem of laborers.”
The head of Russia’s Federation of Migrants, Vadim Kozhenov, has rejected FSIN chief’s suggestions that prisoners could be used to replace foreign workers, noting that many immigrants are highly skilled, according to RT.
“Who will educate” [the prisoners]?” Kozhenov asked the online publication Podyom. “Migrants are sufficiently qualified. [But] FSIN will have to somehow organize all the prisoners and try to understand who is going to make the brick, who is the plaster and who is the carpenter. ”
Recall, the construction sector in Russia has seriously suffered from severe shortage of manpower due to closed borders and low international travel. In particular, citizens of Central Asia’s nations, formerly a valuable source of cheap labor for Russian businesses, are stuck in their home countries.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov revealed in April that revealed that Russia was in dire need of the migrants.
In December last year, it was reported that Russia has lost about five million foreign residents since the start of the COVID-19 crisis. The number of migrants in Russia has now reportedly come down to around 6.3 million.
