The number of illegally working foreigners in Russia fell by 40% last year. On April 5, TASS was told about this in the press center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.
“For 12 months of 2020, the territorial bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia suppressed 40,989 offenses related to the illegal exercise by a foreign citizen or stateless person of labor activity in the Russian Federation (Article 18.10 of the Administrative Code), which is 40% less than in 2019,” the department said.
Against the background of a decrease in the number of foreigners who arrived in the Russian Federation in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, the number of violations of the rules of entry or the regime of stay in the country has also halved. In total, law enforcement officers revealed over 204 thousand violations, which is 51.8% less than in the same period of the previous year.
If usually there are from 9 to 11 million foreigners in Russia, then last year their number was about 5.5 million people, almost 900 thousand of them have a temporary residence permit or a residence permit. Among the foreign citizens entering the territory of Russia, the majority are still citizens of the CIS countries, the Ministry of Internal Affairs noted.
On April 4, it became known that the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia is developing a bill that will allow foreigners and stateless persons to legalize their stay in the territory of the Russian Federation, despite the existing violations.
On March 27, it was reported that the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs is preparing a draft law, according to which the registration of foreign workers and their potential employers in electronic registers will become a prerequisite for working in the territory of the Russian Federation.
On the same day, Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said that there is a shortage of workers in the construction industry in the country. Currently, it is almost 1.5-2 million people.