Starting March 1, Russia plans to expand the list of grounds for terminating employment contracts with foreign workers. Employers will be allowed to dismiss migrant employees if regional authorities introduce restrictions on the use of foreign labor. TASS reported this, citing a document reviewed by the agency.
Previously, Russia’s Labor Code permitted the termination of employment contracts with foreign nationals only in cases where restrictions were imposed at the federal level. The proposed amendments would extend these provisions to include decisions adopted by regional governments.
Explanatory materials to the draft law note that in 2025 such restrictions had already been introduced in several regions, including the Moscow Region, Krasnodar Territory, and the Novgorod and Nizhny Novgorod regions. Regional regulations prohibited the employment of foreign nationals working under patents in certain sectors of the economy.
As a result, employers faced legal uncertainty: failure to comply with regional bans could result in fines of up to one million rubles or suspension of business activities, while dismissing a foreign employee could be deemed unlawful and entail additional legal risks.
According to the document, the proposed changes are intended to eliminate this legal gap and align labor legislation with existing regional practices in regulating migrant employment.
Earlier, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) also proposed banning migrants from changing jobs during their first year of employment.
Russia seeks workers in India amid labor shortages
At the same time, amid a growing labor shortage, Russia has stepped up efforts to attract migrant workers from India and other South Asian countries.
According to Bloomberg, citing labor market participants, Moscow is increasingly recruiting workers beyond traditional sources of labor migration, a trend also reported by RBC.
Yelena Velyaeva, Chief Operating Officer of recruitment agency Intrud, described the developments on Russia’s labor market as a “real tectonic shift.” She noted that recruitment is being carried out not only in India, but also in Sri Lanka and Myanmar.
In December last year, during President Vladimir Putin’s visit to India, the two countries signed an agreement simplifying procedures for temporary labor migration. However, Bloomberg notes that the increase in the number of Indian workers in Russia began even before the agreement was signed.
According to data from Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, more than 56,000 work permits were issued to Indian nationals in 2024, compared to around 5,000 in 2021.
