External Labor Migration in Modern Russia: the Need to Revise the Conceptual Framework
Authors:   North-West Branch of Russian State University of Justice (St. Petersburg), Ocheredko V. P. , Malyshev E. A. 
Published: August 2021

Problem statement. The globalization of economic development factors, the development of world economic relations is manifested, in particular, in the formation of the international labor market, stimulating the growth of external labor migration. These processes fully affect Russia and sharply actualize the need for the institutional and regulatory arrangement of developing migration processes. The implementation of the necessary steps to solve existing problems runs into the preservation of traditional ideas about the content of external labor migration, the existing regulatory framework, and the established forms of institutional interaction at the federal and regional levels. Purpose of the study consists in substantiating the need to develop the concept of external labor migration as a phenomenon having a complex structure of a single nature of multidirectional flows of external labor migration – labor emigration from Russia and labor immigration to Russia. As a research task, the authors determined the development at the conceptual level of the basic category, the definition of the system of legal tools included in the administrative-regulation mechanism of external labor migration in modern Russia. Methods. The work methodology is determined by general scientific, special and private-scientific methods of cognition, which made it possible to comprehensively study the problems of administrative and legal regulation of external labor migration in modern Russia. The work was carried out on the basis of the use of such general scientific research methods as comparative legal, formal legal and institutional legal modeling. In the course of the study, system-structural and logical approaches to the study were applied. The analysis of external labor migration in the proposed sense requires new approaches. In its most general form, this can be represented as a «reverse» dichotomous analysis. Results. The analysis and generalization of existing traditional approaches to understanding external labor migration is carried out and the need to overcome them is substantiated. The theoretical foundations are determined and the author's interpretation of the concept of external labor migration as a whole economic and legal phenomenon, consisting of relatively autonomous, but organically connected exit and entry labor flows, is proposed. The necessity of improving legal regulation, a new level of institutional interaction of public administration bodies at the federal and regional levels on the regulation of external labor migration flows in the context of Russia's economic development is substantiated. Conclusions. Ensuring the national interests of Russia involves the search for adequate organizational and legal measures to implement the strategic goals of improving the management of migration processes. The definition of the modern vector of state policy in the field of external labor migration should be based on a new conceptual theoretical basis. Migration legislation in the field of external labor migration needs to be codified, developed and adopted an independent federal law «On External Labor Migration». An important step in improving migration policy is the development of new forms of institutional interaction at the federal and regional levels.