Professor Abdugani Ulmasov of the Russian-Tajik (Slavic) University (Российско-таджикского (Славянского) университета) said that, in the near term, workers from Asian countries will not be able to replace labor resources from the CIS countries (Содружество Независимых Государств) in the Russian labor market. For a company, this is not a new hiring rule but a market benchmark: it is risky to plan to meet staffing needs on the assumption that labor sources are fully and quickly interchangeable.
This is a market assessment, not a change to migration rules
The report does not mention new quotas, bans, employer obligations, or transition periods. No new deadlines have been established for processing foreign workers. Therefore, companies should not interpret the expert’s statement as a regulatory change or as grounds to automatically alter their current HR procedures.
The practical meaning of the assessment is that, in the short term, employers should not assume that the familiar flow of workers from the CIS countries can be replaced without preparation by recruiting personnel from Asian countries. The material does not assess long-term prospects, so no conclusions about them can be drawn.
Where staffing dependence becomes an operational risk
The signal is particularly important for employers engaged in mass hiring and with a high need for frontline personnel. If a particular operation, shift, or occupation relies on foreign employees, unfilled positions may quickly affect production and service targets.
It is useful to assess not only the total number of foreign employees but also how they are distributed across departments and vacancies. This analysis helps identify where the lack of replacement capacity is most critical and prevents decisions about a new recruitment channel from being based solely on the overall labor shortage.
How to adjust the staffing plan without abrupt decisions
There is no need to abandon the search for workers from other regions. The expert assessment does not mean that employers cannot recruit foreign nationals from Asian countries. However, this recruitment should not be treated as a guaranteed and immediate replacement for personnel from the CIS countries.
It is sensible to base the staffing plan on confirmed needs: identify critical vacancies, build a candidate pool, and verify the actual situation with current employees. It is advisable to plan staffing needs and check documents (the records required in each worker’s individual case) before a labor shortage has already resulted in unfilled shifts.
Monitoring current employees and candidates
For foreign nationals already employed, it is important to check the validity periods of their documents and plan their renewal. The source material does not specify particular documents or deadlines, so these should be determined based on the individual employee’s citizenship and circumstances rather than by applying a single template to everyone.
When recruiting candidates, it is useful to classify them in advance by citizenship and the applicable employment procedure (the process used to hire the relevant category of foreign worker). This reduces the risk that the HR department will allocate the same actions, resources, and expectations to different categories of foreign nationals even though the conditions for recruiting them may differ.
What to prepare when recruiting workers from Asian countries
Before starting this type of recruitment, companies should separately assess the organizational, financial, and time resources required to attract workers. The material provides no calculations, list of procedures, or processing time, so it is impossible to specify a single deadline or budget in advance for all employers and citizenships.
In addition to processing, practical onboarding will be required: training and internal communications for new employees. Preparing these processes does not in itself confirm that rapid replacement is possible, but it helps employers avoid postponing organizational issues until vacancies already need to be filled.
What to check
- Compile a list of vacancies and operations where work depends on personnel from the CIS countries.
- Assess the actual share of foreign workers in each critical department.
- Check the validity periods of current foreign employees’ documents and their renewal plans.
- Build a pool of candidates for key mass-hiring occupations.
- Classify candidates by citizenship and the applicable employment procedure.
- Before recruiting in Asian countries, assess the organizational, financial, and time resources required.
- Prepare an onboarding plan for new workers: training and internal communications.