Kazakhstan

• social support from birth to adulthood;
• employment at working age;
• security at work;
• social insurance measures;
• social assistance in difficult life situations;
• support for the elderly.

Kazakhstan has determined its quota for employing foreign workers, reported the press service of the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Population on Jan. 10. Local employees are allowed to hire up to 22,200 foreign nationals, which is 0.24 percent of the total workforce in the country. The quota is aimed at protecting the domestic labor market.  This year the workers are divided into four categories. The first category implies CEOs and their deputies, which allows for 949 hires. Up to 5,313 departmental heads can also be employed. Specialists and other qualified personnel take up the majority of the quota. Being in the third and fourth categories, they can accommodate 10,818 and 2,100 employees.  Last year, the quota comprised 21,100 people, of which only 13,400 permits were issued, or 63.5 percent of the total. The ministry also determined the quota for immigrant labor for domestic work at 296,700 workers or 3.2 percent of the entire workforce in Kazakhstan. Last year, it issued 272,002 such permits.

3. In general, the labor market in Kazakhstan remains stable, according to the  The unemployment rate has not departed from projected values since the pandemic. Market conditions that form trends are also stable, such as the disproportion of labor resources between megacities and regions, the lack of qualified personnel, and the general shortage of personnel. However, in 2023, the existing balance may well be slightly upset. What awaits the labor market in Kazakhstan soon, we will understand below.

Globally, the entire region of Central Asia, as well as Europe, expects a decline in employment caused by economic factors, the same impending recession in the global economy. This follows from the analysis of the International Labor Organization (ILO). At the same time, there is reason to believe that the unemployment rate in the republic changes insignificantly. The current shortage of personnel will act as a buffer for the reduction of available jobs.

That is, the system will remain in balance. However, this may fully affect the quality of labor and its productivity, downplaying them. And as a result, having slowed down the predicted growth of salaries. The way it was last year when average remuneration for labor grew at a double-digit rate over the year (+16% on average year on year), will no longer be the case.

Also, if that year, employers were actively expanding their staff and looking for personnel, then this year, the search and hiring processes may well become less active – during a crisis, employers will choose safer behaviors and will not rush into expenses and investments. Yes, and the applicants themselves are likely to hide, and the number of active resumes will decrease.

In addition, probably already this year, we will see the active formation of alternative employment formats in the country. The discussion of the bill regulating platform employment in the country is a rather weighty hint at this.

The global shifts towards alternative employment are already quite obvious. According to PwC analysts, the global freelancing market has already exceeded $7 trillion and continues to grow. Today, according to various estimates, every third employed person in the world has experience in freelance work. And global companies are increasingly saying that they plan to attract more freelancers to work. Against this background, Kazakhstan does not lag. The number of freelancers in the country can grow by 3-4% annually. In 2021 alone, more than 800,000 people had experience working with legal entities as freelance contractors, according to the CRTR (Labor Development Center). Another 200 thousand, according to the analysis of the MDG, cooperated with the subjects of individual entrepreneurship.