UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 22, 2015. 46,000 job patents for foreign workers were issued by Sverdlovsk Region authorities in the eleven months of 2015; this was 13,000 less than one year earlier, head of the Federal Migration Service’s local division Elena Otinova said at a press conference.

‘The figures mainly went down because of the economic crisis and the new, stricter standards of migration laws. Despite this negative trend, Sverdlovsk Region is doing noticeably better than our neighboring constituencies. All in all, the number of job migrants in the Mid-Urals declined only moderately,’ she said.

According to Otinova, many foreign workers choose not to register with the authorities or buy patents because the procedure involves too much red tape and is too costly.