ASI proposed to equate migrants with Russians to pay them benefits

Many migrants in Russia today are left without work, money and the opportunity to return to their homeland. ASI sent proposals to the Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin on the regulation of the labor market and employment in connection with the pandemic, RBC reports. One of the initiatives is to temporarily equalize migrants in rights with the Russians, in this case they will be able to receive unemployment benefits. The appeal was signed by ASI CEO Svetlana Chupsheva.

Portugal already has such experience - about 580 thousand migrants are equated with citizens of the country in social rights. All who managed to apply for a residence permit have a right to get social support in the same way as Portuguese citizens.

The ASI also believes that it would be advisable to organize the training of migrants who are left without work “for free markets and for markets for servicing IT infrastructure”. To implement this initiative, "it is possible to launch a redistribution of funds from the national project" Labor productivity and employment support ".

We may recall that on April 18, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree according to which labor migrants whose stay in the country was legal upon March 15, 2020, have the right to remain in Russia without renewing their visas, residence permits and other documents under which they located in the Russian Federation. Leading researcher at RANEPA, Yulia Florinskaya notes that in the current situation officially employed migrants should apply for unemployment benefits - employers paid taxes for them, but they are not entitled to any social benefits. Florinsky clarified that the ASI initiative requires amendments to Russian legislation.

Meanwhile, Russians are massively losing work. On April 9, the Ministry of Labor introduced an electronic procedure for registering unemployed people and received over 180 thousand applications for registration through the portal “Work in Russia”. Since the beginning of 2020, unemployment in the country has grown by 44 thousand people - and these are only official figures that do not reflect the fullness of the picture.

As for the benefits for the citizens of the Russian Federation themselves, from March 30, the Cabinet of Ministers set the maximum unemployment benefit for the period of the pandemic - 12,130 rubles, and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin appointed for the residents of the capital an amount of 19,500 rubles. But it turned out to be quite difficult to get money in fact: either the site is unavailable (but the registration is still possible only online), or the technical work is underway on it, or the additional reference is required and it's impossible to receive.