Russian companies in the machinery and electronics sectors are interested in hiring skilled Indian professionals to address the labour shortage. India’s Ambassador to Russia, Vinay Kumar, told Russian state news agency TASS that the demand for Indian workers was expanding beyond traditional sectors.
“At a broader level, there is manpower requirement in Russia and India has a skilled manpower. So at present, within the Russian regulations, framework of Russian regulations, laws and quotas, the companies are hiring Indians,” Kumar said.
He pointed out that many Indians working in Russia so far have been employed in construction and textiles, but interest in hiring them for machinery and electronics roles has been steadily rising.
The envoy also flagged the workload for consular services as more Indians arrive in Russia for employment opportunities.
“When people come and leave, they need consular services to extend passport, childbirth, say for example, and loss of passport and those kinds, basically consular services,” Kumar noted.
1 MILLION FOREIGN WORKERS EXPECTED IN RUSSIA
Russia is facing a major labour shortage in its industrial hubs and plans to bring in up to one million foreign workers by the end of this year, including Indians.
“As far as I know, by the end of the year, 1 million specialists from India will come to Russia, including the Sverdlovsk region. A new Consulate General is opening in Yekaterinburg, which will deal with these issues,” Andrey Besedin, head of the Ural Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told RosBusinessConsulting (RBC), as quoted by PTI.
Besedin stressed that industrial enterprises in the Sverdlovsk region urgently needed to expand production but lacked qualified personnel. “Some workers are deployed in the military operation in Ukraine, and young people do not go to factories,” he said.
The Sverdlovsk region, with Yekaterinburg as its capital, sits in the Ural Mountains and is regarded as the backbone of Russian heavy industry and its military-industrial complex. It is home to iconic enterprises — including Uralmash and UralVagonZavod — the manufacturer of the T-90 series battle tanks.
The Russian Ministry of Labour has projected a workforce shortage of 3.1 million people by 2030. To address the gap, the ministry wants to increase the quota for qualified foreign workers in 2025 by 1.5 times to 0.23 million people.
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