Recruiters say there is a boom in attracting workers from Africa Who and in which countries Russian businesses are hiring from
Against the background of a shortage of staff, Russian companies have become more active in looking for employees in Africa, hh.ru has found out. The number of vacancies in Kenya has increased 39 times, in Zimbabwe - 15 times. Most often, sales and IT specialists are attracted from abroad
In the first half of 2024, Russian companies have multiplied their employee search activity in Africa. This follows from the materials of analysts of the online recruiting platform hh.ru, provided at RBC's request. In particular, such countries as Kenya, Zimbabwe, Cameroon became the leaders in terms of growth rates of vacancies in annual terms, while the number of adverts in a number of European countries and the USA, on the contrary, decreased. Together with experts, RBC looked into the reasons for the growing popularity of employees from Africa and the main difficulties of hiring workers from abroad.
Boom in hiring Africans
According to hh.ru data for the first half of 2024, seven of the ten foreign countries with the highest growth in vacancies from Russian organisations are African countries. If in the first half of 2023 in each of them you could find no more than 500 vacancies from Russian employers, then in the first six months of this year the number of job offers has increased multiples, in some cases dozens of times, hh.ru analysts note.
For example, the number of vacancies increased the most in Kenya - by 39 times (from 161 vacancies in the first half of 2023 to 6,400 vacancies in the first half of 2024). A number of other African countries also saw a significant increase in the number of jobs on offer, but in absolute terms, more modestly. Thus, in Zimbabwe the number of vacancies increased 15 times (to 165), in Cameroon - nine times (to 130), in Zambia - eight times (to 224). In addition, a sharp increase in the number of vacancies was recorded in Algeria (seven times, up to 1.7 thousand).
Among non-African countries, Albania, Pakistan and Belgium were the leaders in terms of vacancy growth rates.
In addition, in 2024, Russian companies for the first time placed vacancies in such countries as Nepal, Bahamas, Barbados, Malawi, Iceland, Sierra Leone, Gabon and Central African Republic (CAR). The total number of vacancies in the above countries in the first half of the year reached almost 300, hh.ru analysts pointed out.
Marina Khramova, director of the Institute of Demographic Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, predicted in an interview with RBC that the geography of migration to Russia may expand to include African countries. She also admitted that in the future the domestic labour market may attract migrants from South-East Asian countries, such as Thailand or the Philippines.
Geography of recruitment outside Africa
In absolute terms, in terms of the number of vacancies of Russian companies, the EEU member countries are natural leaders: Kazakhstan (143 thousand vacancies) and Belarus (106 thousand vacancies). In the first half of the year, the number of jobs offered in them grew by 26% and 28% respectively, according to hh.ru data. Similar to Russia business conditions and the lack of significant differences in corporate governance in companies, explains Natalia Danina, the chief expert of hh.ru on the labour market. This makes recruitment and adaptation almost seamless.
Among non-CIS countries in the number of vacancies of domestic business ahead of all Turkey and Serbia (23 thousand vacancies in each: in Turkey the increase was 7%, in Serbia the figure has not changed), follows from the data hh.ru. In other countries among the most demanded by Russian companies negative dynamics in the first half of the year was noted, for example, in the UAE, where the number of vacancies decreased by 10% (to 9.9 thousand), and in Thailand - by 6% (to 12.5 thousand).
In the European Union states there is a multidirectional dynamics of demand for labour force, hh.ru analysts noted. In Germany, the number of vacancies from Russian employers decreased by 4%, in the Netherlands - by 8%, in Poland - by 2%. The upward trend is observed in Italy and France - there the demand for specialists increased by 33 and 24% respectively. At the same time, vacancies in the USA and Cyprus (the main locations of startups with Russian roots) decreased by 26 and 13%, hh.ru pointed out.
Categories of employees for hiring abroad
The composition of the most sought-after categories of employees hired from abroad by Russian employers has not changed over the year - these are account managers, IT specialists and marketing specialists, according to hh.ru's data on invitations to vacancies. The top ten also includes specialists in the field of art and mass media, administrative staff, workers and builders.
At the same time, the greatest increase in demand showed vacancies for workers in science and education - in the first half of the year, the number of invitations for employees in this field from abroad has doubled. The number of invitations for foreign workers increased by 68%, agricultural specialists - by 63%, employees in the field of raw materials extraction and construction - by 53 and 51% respectively.
It should be understood that the search for and invitations to staff vacancies do not fully reflect the typical portrait of a migrant, as their recruitment generally varies quite a lot depending on speciality and region, Danina notes. ‘It is safe to say that hiring migrants for labourer and construction positions (in general, for low-skilled positions) is traditionally characteristic of Central Asian countries and this year for a number of African countries,’ she points out.
At the same time, highly qualified specialists with knowledge of the specifics of local markets and businesses are sought for marketing and account management positions all over the world, while the search for top managers (mainly from among Russian re-locates) this year was concentrated in the UAE, Serbia, Turkey and Thailand. IT specialists are also being sought there, Danina says.
The number of African specialists entering Russia is growing every year, says Vsevolod Sviridov, an expert at the Centre for African Studies, Department of World Economy and World Politics, National Research University Higher School of Economics. ‘African labour migrants occupy absolutely different niches in the labour market: some are actually employed in rather low-skilled professions, for example in construction, working in warehouses, in agriculture, while others occupy high managerial positions in large Russian companies,’ he points out.
Recent examples include Timothy Musa Kabba, a graduate of the Mining University in St. Petersburg, who worked as a geologist for Russian oil and gas companies for nearly a decade and is now Sierra Leone's foreign minister, Sviridov recalls.
According to the FSB, in the first quarter of 2024, foreigners entered Russia 1.4 million times for the purpose of work. The bulk of them are citizens of Uzbekistan (689,000 people) and Tajikistan (358,000 people).
Difficulties in hiring foreigners
The employment of foreigners involves a number of complications, Danina notes. For example, when it comes to hiring workers or construction workers with relocation to Russia, the main burden lies in organising logistics (due to the lack of direct or regular flights to Russia), obtaining quotas, and the presence of language and cultural barriers in work teams. When working with highly qualified specialists from non-CIS countries, who are more often hired without relocation, problems may arise with the organisation of financial settlements, Danina adds.
Migration regulation in Russia also has its own specifics, points out Sofia Luneva, a lawyer in BGP Litigation's labour law practice. For example, for foreigners who enter on visas, the procedure is the most complicated, as it requires a permit to hire foreign labour for the company, an invitation from the employer to enter and a work permit for the foreigner (in a number of areas, their number may be limited by quotas).
An alternative is the status of a highly qualified specialist - if this status is available, the employee is not subject to quotas. The downside of such a simplified procedure is increased costs for the employee. ‘The minimum salary of a highly qualified specialist should be 750,000 roubles per quarter,’ says Luneva.
The registration of visa-free foreign citizens is much simpler in terms of documents. ‘Such foreigners work on the basis of a patent or on the basis of a national document, as is the case with the employment of citizens from EAEU countries,’ she notes. At the same time, for all migrants it is obligatory to have documents on passing dactyloscopy, photography and medical examination. And in any case, regardless of the status of a foreign worker, the employer is obliged to notify the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs authorities about the conclusion / termination of the labour contract within a period of no more than three working days.
‘A mistake even in a comma when filling out the notification can cost the employer from 400 thousand to 800 thousand rubles for each foreigner, and if workers are attracted to work in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Moscow or Leningrad regions - up to 1 million rubles,’ - points out Luneva. At the same time, finding a court case in the field of migration, which would be resolved in favour of the employer, is ‘a task with an asterisk’, she sums up.
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