Labor formalities are asked to be simplified - Newspaper Kommersant No. 19 (7464) dated 02/02/2023

Labor formalities are asked to be simplified - Newspaper Kommersant No. 19 (7464) dated 02/02/2023



Russian business is counting on concessions for foreign workers, Boris Titov, Commissioner for the Protection of the Rights of Entrepreneurs, said in a letter to Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, proposing to extend the validity of labor patents and introduce a mechanism for the rehabilitation of expelled foreign employees at the request of employers. Due to the long terms for issuing patents and the impossibility of migrants entering the country due to minor violations, the business suffers losses, and the budget receives less taxes, the Ombudsman believes.

At the end of January, the Commissioner for the Protection of the Rights of Entrepreneurs Boris Titov sent a letter to Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova with proposals to soften migration legislation - 115-FZ "On the legal status of foreign citizens in the Russian Federation" and 114-FZ "On the procedure for leaving the Russian Federation and entering the Russian Federation" . Among the initiatives of the business ombudsman are the extension of the validity of a labor patent from one year to three years and the introduction of a mechanism for the rehabilitation of foreign workers who are prohibited from entering the country.

As the commissioner points out in his appeal, although the period for considering an application for a patent does not exceed ten days, it takes migrants another 20 days to prepare documents (the procedure requires a notarized translation of an identity document, a migration card, a voluntary medical insurance policy, a certificate of passing a medical examination, a certificate of knowledge of the Russian language, registration at the place of stay). “As a result, foreign workers are forced to spend up to 30 days annually to obtain a new patent, falling out of the economic turnover for this time. Entrepreneurs suffer losses from their downtime, and the budget receives less personal income tax, since the employer does not pay taxes for foreign workers during the period of registration of a new patent, ”explains the commissioner. Extending the term of the patent, according to the business ombudsman, could solve this problem, while reducing the burden on the internal affairs bodies.

The losses of Russian entrepreneurs are also increased by bans on the entry of foreign workers for minor violations: in practice, such bans for a period of three to five years are received by couriers who have violated traffic rules several times, as well as skilled workers in the agro-industrial complex, industry and construction who have committed minor administrative offenses. According to the business ombudsman, it is necessary to allow bona fide employers to file petitions with the internal affairs bodies to open entry for their former employees. Now such a mechanism is already in place for foreigners if they want to get to the Russian Federation for emergency treatment, as well as due to a serious illness or death of a close relative.

However, as follows from the statistics collected by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, now the number of migrants working in the Russian Federation, although it has not reached the pre-pandemic level, still exceeds the same indicator for 2022. Thus, in January-December 2022, the migration services issued more than 16 million documents to foreigners for registration, which is more than 3 million more than in 2021. The number of issued patents remained virtually unchanged (about 2 million), but the number of employment contracts officially concluded with migrants increased by almost 400,000 (from 1.6 million to 2 million). For comparison, in 2019, the same figures were 19 million people and 1.7 million patents (statistics on employment contracts were not kept).

On the other hand, as Kommersant's source in the department notes, the government "conceptually" may be ready to discuss certain changes to migration legislation - in November last year, it submitted a bill to the State Duma with amendments to documents regulating migration registration in the Russian Federation. “With due perseverance, the additional wishes of business could be taken into account in the amendments to the second reading,” says Kommersant's interlocutor.

Diana Galieva, Anastasia Manuylova



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