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The World Bank: about 1 million Belarusians work abroad

And around 30 thousands foreigners came to Belarus to work

Belarusian labour migration in 2014

Preliminary data show that in 2014 the Belarusian labour migration was not so widespread, and among migrants there are 5.8 thousand people, according to federal employment law charts. But this number is an official one, and only people who left the country having contracts are counted.

The overwhelming majority of Belarusians go to Russia. For the recent 9 months of 2014 this country received about 87% of our workers. The second place goes to the USA that has 5.4% of the employment contracts. In the top-3 with 2.6% we can see Germany that removed Poland two years ago.

About 63% of Belarusian migrants do blue-collar jobs, about 10.8% are a skilled workforce and others work in the service sector, agriculture and other sectors which are in demand abroad.

How many foreigners worked in Belarus in 2014?

According to the statistics Belarus received about 30 thousand migrant workers in 2014. In other words, every Belarusian who went to earn money abroad falls within six working foreigners in our country. And this number is doubled in comparison with 2013. But it’s not thanks to the economy of Belarus that is supposed to offer high salaries. Ukrainians are the main migrants who had to leave their motherland due to the horrible situation there. More than 10 thousand Ukrainians left for Belarus in 2014. Chinese workers occupy the second place among all the migrants in Belarus, and curiously enough Russian workers are also abundant. All in all, representatives of 84 countries live and work in our country.

As for the sectors in which the foreigners work, it’s evident that the majority of migrants (about 74%) are blue-collars. Highly qualified migrants make up 17%, 5% are agriculture workers, 4% are workers of the service sector and trade, and only 0.3% are managers.

The reality

By the way, the data mentioned above don’t describe the reality. According to the official statistics the number of people who come to work to Belarus is six times bigger than the number of people who leave Belarus. But the unofficial statistics says the opposite.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs at least 100 thousand Belarusians work abroad. And this number is tree time bigger than the number of the migrant workers in Belarus. The World Bank says that 1.1 million Belarusians work outside the country, and it’s 34 times more than the amount of workers who arrive to Belarus to get paid. Uninterested sociologists say about 200-300 thousand Belarusians who annually leave the country to earn money abroad. But even this number is ten times bigger than the number of migrant workers in Belarus.
Text and pictures by TUT.BY

About Yana Yelina (30 Articles)
Yana is a fresh graduate of Minsk State Linguistic University. So it is not surprising she adores languages (English, Spanish, Italian). She's also a sports fan, and she won't lose an opportunity to watch some tennis/football/snooker matches. Moreover, she is nuts about travelling, dancing and reading.

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