Tashkent, 2 November. From next year the function of sending Uzbek citizens to work abroad will be handed to reliable private employment agencies, the press service of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev reported after a meeting on labour migration.
After licensing was simplified, the number of private agencies tripled in two years, and the number of citizens they placed abroad grew fivefold. For each person placed in a well-paid job the agency will be paid an incentive of 1.5 million soms. An open ranking of agencies is planned; its main criteria are placement results, protection of citizens’ rights and social guarantees. The President also instructed that within a month a draft decision aimed at taking the agencies’ work to a new level be submitted.
Mirziyoyev explained the task by the state of the market. The world has 168 million labour migrants; Uzbekistan used to run organised migration with three states and now has 27, and the number of large foreign employers it cooperates with has grown by almost 400. Over ten years the number of Uzbeks working abroad has halved, while the money they send to their families has grown fourfold. The gap between regions is large: in the Fergana region each person working abroad sends home an average of 1,850 dollars a month, while in some regions it is under 400.
Training was named as the main obstacle. This year Germany requested 45,000 specialists, but only 2,000 people found jobs: there are too few people who speak German. German will be taught alongside a trade in two or three technical colleges in each region; at the international centre “Intil”, with the company “Telc”, 100 teachers are already being trained, and another 500 native speakers will be brought into schools and colleges. Next year each region will open a single labour-migration centre, with 8 billion soms allotted to each, and 10,000 people will be taught a trade and German. Within a month 20 colleges will be selected and their programmes adapted to foreign employers’ requirements, and another two or three colleges in each region will be handed to large entrepreneurs to run for 15 years: they are to train at least 30,000 specialists a year, and the costs will be deducted from the taxable base.
At present, the President said, citizens are not properly informed about vacancies: this year 287,000 people can be placed in 34 countries. Information on every job abroad will be brought to residents at the level of the mahalla, and the “mahalla seven” will enter data on those who want to work abroad into the “Online Mahalla” platform. Through this platform a person in trouble abroad will be able to leave an appeal, and the ambassador will, if necessary, take it up personally. “Not one of our compatriots working abroad should be left alone with their problems,” Mirziyoyev stressed.
Since the start of the year 1 million 116 thousand people have returned home from labour migration, among them specialists who gained experience in industry, construction, logistics and services. A platform with data on their trade and work record will be created for them, and by the end of the year suitable jobs will be found for 250,000 people. Pensions were also raised: Uzbeks work legally and pay pension contributions in more than 40 countries; this year agreements on recognising work records were signed with Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan and Turkey, and Kazakhstan is not named among them in the report. The reverse flow was discussed too: about 250,000 foreigners are staying in Uzbekistan long term, of whom 36,000 have work permits and 24,000 are students.
What it means: Tashkent is changing the go-between linking a worker and a foreign employer: instead of state bodies, licensed private agencies that are paid for results and whose ranking is open. Alongside runs training for specific vacancies, above all with German, and a plan for employing those who have come home.
Who benefits: Agencies, which will be paid for each person placed in a well-paid job; entrepreneurs who will be given colleges for 15 years with a tax deduction; workers — if the ranking and criteria really protect their rights and income. The details of the decision are unknown: the draft is yet to be submitted.
Background: Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed two documents on regulating external labour migration on 17 October 2024; earlier still, the authorities decided to hand part of the state migration agency’s functions to the private sector.
