ロシアから帰国すべきか…選択迫られる中央アジアの労働者

【ＡＦＰ＝時事】タジキスタンの首都ドゥシャンベで報道関係の仕事をしているエモマリ・サファロフさん（２４）。ロシアに出稼ぎに行き、建設作業現場で働いていた。今は、給料は安いが、自国で元の職業に復帰した。（写真はキルギスの首都ビシケク近郊の国際空港で、ロシアから帰国した男性）
　これからどうするか、考えていない。ロシアがウクライナに侵攻した２日後、西側諸国の対ロ制裁が発動される中、ロシアからぎりぎり脱出できたことにほっとしている。
　「ロシアで３０年以上働いているという出稼ぎ労働者の話を聞いた。口々に、今のロシアは昔とは全く違うと言っていた。状況は非常に悪い。働くのもとても難しくなっている」と語った。
　求人が減ったロシアで、暴落した通貨ルーブルで給料をもらい続けるか、もしくは求人はさらに少ないものの家族が住む故郷に戻るか。旧ソ連の構成国だった中央アジアの国々から何十万人も来ている出稼ぎ労働者は、選択を迫られている。
　ロシアのウラジーミル・プーチン氏が大統領に就任してから最初の２期は、エネルギー価格の上昇を追い風に、タジクなどから労働者がロシアに押し寄せた。
　タジクでは、国外に出稼ぎに出ている労働者からの送金が国内総生産（ＧＤＰ）の２５～４０％程度を占めている。
　しかし、２０１４年のロシアによるウクライナ・クリミア半島併合に対する西側諸国の制裁や石油価格の下落などにより、送金額は減っていた。
　さらに今回のウクライナ侵攻で、ルーブルの価値は約５分の１低下。西側諸国は今年のロシアの経済成長率はマイナス５～１０％にまで落ち込み、２３年もマイナス成長が続くと予測している。
　タジクは旧ソ連構成国の中でも最も貧しく、平均月収は１００ドル（約１万２０００円）程度。人口９５０万人の大半はイスラム教徒だ。
　サファロフさんによると、侵攻前にはモスクワやクリミアの工事現場で月７００ドル（現在のレートで約８万６０００円）稼げれば、家族に２００ドル（同約２万５０００円）を送金できた。

■ＧＤＰ８割が国外からの送金
　ドゥシャンベ中心部の銀行前に集まっていた女性たちは３月初め、ロシアからのルーブル建ての送金は減っていると語った。ルーブル下落の影響でタジク通貨ソモニも約１４％下落している。
　息子がモスクワで配達員をしているという女性は、送金額は１０～２０％減ったと話した。
　タジクの隣国、人口７００万人のキルギスでは、国外からの送金がＧＤＰの８割を占めており、国内経済はロシアの景気に大きく左右される。
　ロシア・シベリア地方の都市ノボシビルスクのキルギス人会で幹部を務めていたというチナルカン・シディコワさん（５１）は、家族の介護のため首都ビシケクに戻って来た。
　シディコワさんはＡＦＰに対し、まだロシアにいるキルギス人の知人から何度も電話がかかってきて、帰国方法や求人状況などについて質問されたと語った。
　シディコワさんによると、キルギス人はロシアの主要都市で小売業や飲食業などで働くことが多い。そのため、西側諸国の経済制裁で、米ファストフード大手マクドナルドなど欧米の有名ブランドが相次いで撤退・休業したことによる影響を特に受けているという。
　キルギス国内には失業者が１０万人以上いるとシディコワさん。「（出稼ぎ労働者が）戻って来たらどこで働くのか、どうやって家族を養うのか。大きな問題だ」と漏らした。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/04/06-09:23）

Weeks after returning from Russia amid sanctions triggered by Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, Emomali Safarov has swapped construction tools for a video camera and his old low-paid journalism job in Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe.
He has not yet planned his next steps, but, for the moment, 24-year-old Safarov's feelings are those of relief as the Tajik national reflects on his hasty exit from Russia, just two days after the war with Ukraine began on February 24.
I was speaking to migrants who have been working in Russia for 30 years. They told me that it is impossible to compare today's Russia with the Russia of old. The situation is very bad. Work has become very difficult, Safarov said as he filmed paralympic athletes in Dushanbe for a news outlet.
Hundreds of thousands of nationals of former Soviet countries in Central Asia are facing similar choices: shrinking work opportunities in Russia and wages in the weakened ruble versus a return to the homeland where they have family homes, but even fewer job prospects.
It wasn't always this way.
Russia's continuous economic growth during President Vladimir Putin's first two terms in office, powered by rising energy prices, set the stage for a swell of migration from countries like Tajikistan, where remittances typically equate to between a quarter and two-fifths of GDP.
But successive economic setbacks, most notably the double whammy of Western sanctions over the Kremlin's first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and the oil price crash, have led to tighter margins for guest workers feeding families back home.
Since Russian forces poured into Ukraine the ruble has fallen by around a fifth, with Western forecasters predicting an economic contraction of between five and 10 percent this year and a continuing recession in 2023.
The World Bank in March forecasted that the real value of remittances sent to Tajikistan would fall by 22 percent this year, scrapping its pre-invasion forecast of a two percent rise.
For Safarov, the bleak economic outlook in Russia was compounded by police raids on his and other migrants' places of residence, which he said grew in frequency in the build-up to the invasion.
We need to stop going to Russia in search of work. We need to find a path to work in Europe, Safarov told AFP.
- Remittances already falling -
Tajikistan, a majority-Muslim country of 9.5 million is the poorest of the 15 republics that gained independence from the Soviet Union in the 1990s.
Average monthly salaries hover around $100.
By earning up to $700 per month on building sites in Moscow and in Russia-annexed Crimea prior to the invasion, Safarov was able to send double that amount to his wife and child.
But women gathered outside a bank in central Dushanbe earlier in March told AFP that cash transfers sent by male relatives toiling in Russia were falling in local currency terms, despite the Tajik somoni sliding around 14 percent under pressure from the ailing ruble.
(They have fallen) by 10 to 20 percent, said Nargis Mukhammedova, 44, who receives transfers from her son, a delivery worker in the Moscow region.
My son says things there are getting worse. One day there is work, the next there isn't, said another woman, Zulfiya Aminova, 52, as a third woman began complaining about the rising cost of flour.
- 'Big worry' -
The economy of Tajikistan's neighbour Kyrgyzstan has even more exposure to the Russian labour market, according to World Bank data, with over four-fifths of total remittances sent from Russia in the first three quarters of 2021 compared to 58 percent in Tajikistan's case.
The World Bank's preliminary projection that the dollar value of remittances could fall by a third in Kyrgyzstan this year will alarm policy-makers in the mountainous, import-dependent country of just under seven million people.
Chynarkan Sydykova, a leading member of a Kyrgyz diaspora association in the Russian Siberian city of Novosibirsk, has returned to the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, to care for a family member.
She told AFP that compatriots still in Russia have bombarded her with phone calls, asking her about ways to return home and find work.
Western sanctions will hit Kyrgyzstan particularly hard, the 51-year-old warned, due to the prevalence of Kyrgyz workers in retail and hospitality in major Russian cities, where big-name brands such as McDonald's have suspended operations.
We have over 100,000 unemployed here (in Kyrgyzstan). If (migrants) return, where will they work, how will they feed their families? This is a big worry, Sydykova said.