Who Hijacked Our Country

Sunday, February 22, 2015

One Result of Sanctions against Russia: Fewer Migrant Workers to do Manual Labor

A Day Without a Mexican (which I never saw) is a satirical movie about California grinding to a halt because every Mexican has suddenly/mysteriously disappeared.  No gardeners, busboys, farm laborers, nannies...

This phenomenon is happening in Russia now, because of the weakening Ruble, which is largely the result of Western sanctions against Russia.  Three million migrant workers from Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have been working legally in Russia; plus an unknown number that's under the radar. About half of the gross domestic products of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan consist of their immigrant workers' earnings sent home from Russia.

And now, because of Russia's crumbling economy, a lot of these immigrants are returning home. 

A Day Without an Uzbek: After a recent snowstorm in St. Petersburg, Russians were slipping and falling all over the place because there was nobody clearing the streets and shoveling the sidewalks.  Most of the street sweepers — as well as cab drivers and restaurant workers — were from Central Asia, and now they've left.  The head of a street cleaning company said:

“Almost 30 percent of the workers who left to spend New Year's as usual with their families in Uzbekistan or Tajikistan have not come back.”

Some major construction projects — which employ a large number of migrant workers — are also in jeopardy.

I guess these Central Asian immigrants are doing all the lowly distasteful jobs that Russians won't do.


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2 Comments:

Blogger Jim Marquis said...

To make it easier they should just call the movie "A Day Without Stan".

February 23, 2015 at 2:01 PM  
Blogger Tom Harper said...

Jim: LOL. Or "the day Igor had to shovel his own driveway."

February 23, 2015 at 5:50 PM  

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