As the region’s businesses have already used their foreign worker quotas for the year 2008, Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Migration Service has stopped accepting applications for job permits from foreign citizens for the time being. The job permits in question involve people who come from the countries where no visa is required for coming to Russia. According to Decree 73n issued by the Russian Federation Ministry of Healthcare and Social Development on February 18, 2008, Sverdlovsk Region’s job permits quota for foreign workers amounted to 47,500 people. The figure resulted from the ongoing increase in the number of migrant workers: the number of those foreigners who came to work in the region and were registered by the Service in January-April 2008 exceeded the figures for the first four months of 2007 by 1.5 times. The existing legislation allows for increase in quotas, including qualification and skill-specific ones.

According to the Russian Federation Government’s Provision 783 as of December 22, 2006, the Russian Federation Ministry of Healthcare and Social Development may raise the quotas for certain Russian regions until August 15 of the current year, the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Migration Service reports.

The Service’s regional division decided to apply to its central authority and ask for a permission to give job permits with the future increase in quotas in mind. The requests to raise those have already been placed with the Russian Federation Government.