Eurasianet says new government data from Moscow show that some 1.6 million Tajik citizens have entered Russia to work this year so far.  

Between January and September 2021, Russia’s Interior Ministry reportedly registered 2,025,712 Tajik citizens entering the country – 1.6 million of them, or about one-quarter of Tajikistan’s working-age population, with work as their official purpose.

Over the same period, about 70,000 Tajik citizens received Russian citizenship, according to Eurasianet. 

Tajikistan is one of the world’s most remittance dependent countries and labor migrants are still a critical component in the economy of Tajikistan.  Remittances keep many struggling families at home above the poverty line.  

Tajik seasonal workers travel abroad each year, primarily to the Russian Federation but also to neighboring Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

According to data from the Central Bank of Russia, 752.4 million U.S. dollars have been sent through money transfer system to Tajikistan from Russia over the first six months of this year, last year, which is 10.8 percent more than in the same period last year.

Transfers through payment systems to Tajikistan in the second quarter of this year reportedly increased to US$424.5 million from US$327.9 million in the first quarter.

The average size of one transfer in the first quarter of this year was US$139, and in the second quarter it grew to US$154.

Last year, the remittances labor migrants sent to banks in Tajikistan amounted to 1.7 billion U.S. dollars, which is 835 million USD fewer than in 2019.   

In 2019, Tajik labor migrants sent more than 2.6 billion USD to banks in Tajikistan -- about triple the values of all other country’s exports that year combined, and equivalent to approximately 28 percent of Tajikistan’s gross domestic product (GDP).