Putin Further Reduces Limit On Foreign Workers In Russia

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a resolution today reducing the quota of foreigners that may be allowed to work in Russia in 2010 by another 700,000. The quota was reduced from 2 million to 1.3 million people.

On Thursday at a meeting with Putin, Mikhail Shmakov, the Head of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia, proposed decreasing the quota by twice that amount.

In 2009, the quota for foreign workers was initially fixed at 3.9 million but was decreased almost twofold because of the economic crisis and the lack of jobs in Russia’s domestic marketplace.