More Than 14,000 Foreign Citizens Work in Kazakhstan Today

NUR-SULTAN – The Kazakh Ministry of Labor and Social Protection reported that, as of April 1, 2021, 14,794 foreign citizens are engaged in labor activity on the territory of the country.

The main countries for origin of labor migrants include China (3,617 workers), Turkey (1,490), India (1,098), Great Britain (947) and Uzbekistan (1,369).

Currently, a total of 1,641 Kazakh employers have foreign citizens as their employees. 

Foreign citizens who come to Kazakhstan for work are classified into four main categories, which include managers and deputies, managers of structural units, specialists and qualified workers. 

At the present moment, the division of work permits for foreign citizens between these categories is as follows: 648 permits for the first category and 3,240 for the second category. The largest category is the specialist category that constitutes 7,397 people. The fourth category of qualified workers consists of 491 people. 

The rest of the foreign labor population is accounted for by employees involved in seasonal work (1,329) and those hired as a result of corporate transfers (1,689).

The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection annually establishes a quota for the attraction of foreign specialists in order to protect the domestic labor market. In 2021, the size of the quota was set up at 0.31% of the workforce or 29.3 thousand people.


Get The Astana Times stories sent directly to you! Sign up via the website or subscribe to our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, YouTube and Tiktok!