The highest echelons of power in the Central Asian states (CA) are realizing that the most serious threat to stability in the region lies not in extremism and not in the shortage of irrigation water, but in the annual explosive population growth, migration and employment. The annual increase in the number of citizens in different Central Asian countries is approaching 2.3%. In modern Tajikistan, with 10 million people, for example, the increase is more than 200 thousand people per year. It is very difficult to shoe, clothe, feed, train and provide jobs for such a large number of people. Mass departure for labor migration, often with families, partially mitigates the situation, but it remains difficult – out of 180 thousand residents of the Asht district of Tajikistan in 2024, 24 thousand participated in labor migration.
The Central Asian countries were warned about low per capita incomes and even about their decline back in August 2006, when the First Tajikistan–Russia Interparliamentary Forum was held in Tajikistan.: the potential of interregional cooperation”. A huge unified labor market was opening up for Russia and the countries of Central Asia, in which the main role was planned to be given to recruitment for enterprises and construction sites in Russia.
The delegates of the Tajikistan–Russia forum were surprised to get acquainted with Skype and stated that it was not just a breakthrough technology, but a direct way to streamline labor migration and economic growth. In the countries of Central Asia and in Russia, it was planned to create 700 brokerage offices where, for a small fee, the applicant could count on coordinated and guaranteed employment. Nevertheless, as is almost always the case, the participants of the 2006 forum did not need employment and safely forgot not only about the possibilities of Skype, but also about organizational kits.
In fact, the past years, using the example of the Dushanbe forum, have shown that officials with good salaries are able to declare useful initiatives and produce only one product – paper.
In this regard, it does not hurt to recall how the influx of labor migrants to Russia began in the 90s of the last century. Most of the Central Asian citizens tried to find work in the Russian markets, but it turned out that many places there were occupied by citizens of the South Caucasus. A different path opened up for people – to master construction specialties, and hundreds of thousands of people today remember Russia as a huge construction vocational school.
Just as millions of migrants from Turkey and Asian countries found jobs and settled in Europe after the Second World War, construction communities and diasporas began to form in Russia. The experience of these people grew – starting with the simplest earthworks, small companies began to professionally dismantle dilapidated structures, and then build quite decent and complex buildings.
And now, despite the emergence of new messengers on the Internet, Central Asian countries are thinking about diversifying traditional areas of mass labor migration. Against the background of the deportations of Central Asian citizens from Russia, Germany, Great Britain, South Korea, and Israel appeared among the countries accepting workers.
The tools that deter labor migration have begun to include publications about what it should be and what it should not be. Verification delegations from Central Asia began to travel to the labor-deficient regions of Russia. The authorities’ concern was also expressed in explanatory talks about terrorism and extremism held at the airport in Tajikistan, about knowledge of the Russian language, Russian laws, the rights of the Russian police and their rights.
At a time when the problems of labor migration and demography already pose a threat to state security, a series of 18 publications in one of Uzbekistan’s online media outlets about saving money and the opportunities of the self-employed deserves attention. For five months, thousands of citizens of the republic have been getting acquainted in the media with tips on significant money savings and informal income opportunities. Readers will be particularly interested in a new book being prepared for publication in Uzbekistan with more than 200 recommendations, including a rare high–paying informal job – moving burials from Central Asian countries.
Speaking about Tajikistan’s economy, independent expert Sobir Kurbanov noted that informal employment remains a common phenomenon in the republic. As in any country, informal employment has always been there and has not gone away. Naturally, informal employment is not welcomed by the tax authorities. According to Rosstat, for example, the number of informally employed people in Russia in the third quarter of 2024 amounted to more than 15 million people, or 21.3% of all employment. In Central Asia, this percentage is even higher, and if the situation in the southern republics is not controlled, a social explosion can be eliminated only by increasing the share of informal employment.
But if the state has not created conditions for a person to work and earn a decent salary, only fraudsters will deliberately hide their “work” and taxes, and informally employed people will more often be forced to go informal, knowing well what awaits them. The informally employed are deprived of sick leave and vacation pay, deprived of social protection. His work and income, based on verbal agreements, are hidden by the citizen and the employer, and the risks are high. An unscrupulous employer risks paying a large fine for hiring an informal worker, and an employee, even after receiving a salary with the participation of the prosecutor’s office, risks losing his pension in an accident (for example, private transportation) and benefits.
There are many justifications for the growth of informal employment. It is often attributed to the development of the Internet and remote work. But the ways to reduce informal or, as it is sometimes called, shadow employment are also well known. These include the creation of permanent legal jobs, a reduction in inflation and the percentage of social insurance, a reduction in corruption, and the creation of trade union organizations that protect people at work. One of the ways to reduce shadow employment and tax increases is to preserve large companies, since large businesses almost never become medium–sized, and even more so, they will never become small.
