TODAY.AZ / Business

Azerbaijan still needs foreign specialists

05 August 2015 [10:05] - TODAY.AZ

/By AzerNews/

By Nigar Orujova

With a strict focus on the non-oil sector, oil-producing Azerbaijan has expanded its hunt for professionals in various fields of economy.

Many unsteady global economies have turned human capital into one of the main drivers of growth. Now both developing and developed countries are keen on optimizing their labor markets by creating favorable conditions for high-class professionals in an effort to reduce the number of unskilled workers.

Developing an innovative economy and education system indeed puts Azerbaijan close to this trend of the times.

“Azerbaijan has a total of 23,000 registered expats,” Azer Allakhveranov, a migration expert, told local media. “The country does not have a huge number of migrants like other countries, including Russia. Migrants here are mainly involved in the oil and gas industry, services and tourism.”

The expert said that a high number of foreign migrants are observed in more or less stable sectors. “Therefore, there is no tendency on reduction of the number of working foreign staff in Azerbaijan,” he added.

Allakhveranov noted that the number of foreign workers tends to decline in countries with deteriorating economic conditions.

"We are observing a little stagnation in the construction field, but the country will be involved in new major economic projects in the near future, that is sure to stimulate even greater flow of foreign forces,” he believes.

To attract highly-skilled professionals, Azerbaijan has minimized its bureaucracy, simplifying the registration procedures and improving its migration and labor legislations, as well as extending work permits that are now valid for one year.

Foreigners desiring to work in Azerbaijan should get familiar with the respective procedures before applying for a job in the country. To obtain a work permit in the country, a foreigner must have at least five years experience in the field. This blocks the flow of unskilled workers from abroad and boosts a more effective use of local labor.

Engaging foreign workers does not limit employment opportunities for local job hunters, but on the contrary encourages the development of the education system and the training of highly qualified specialists in the country. They are intended to ultimately replace foreigner labor.

The current pace of technological development sometimes surpasses the speed of training of highly qualified personnel. That makes for a more acute problem of attracting foreign specialists in these new fields.

Today, the unemployment rate in Azerbaijan is one of the lowest in the region and stands at five percent.

At the same time, the quota for foreigners who wish to work in Azerbaijan is declining annually, which prevents the growth of unemployment in the country.

Chairman of the League for Protection of Workers Rights, Sahib Mammadov believes that there are four categories of foreign experts working in Azerbaijan.

While the first category includes specialists who have come to Azerbaijan via transnational corporations mainly from Western Europe, the second category consists of the staff of transnational corporations generally from South-East Asia, he thinks.

The third category consists of people who found jobs in Azerbaijan by themselves and come mostly from Asia and Africa.

The fourth category includes the unregulated participants of the labor market from around the world. Only one out of seven members of this category has a valid work permit. These working migrants are mostly ethnic Azerbaijanis from Georgia, as well as many citizens from Pakistan and Philippines.

Despite the fact that Azerbaijan is open for foreign professionals, the country now seeks to nationalize its labor market, including those working in the international companies in the oil and gas industry.

For instance, the British giant BP, an operator of large-scale energy projects in the country, plans to increase the number of local staff to 90 percent by 2018.

Moreover, to prepare highly-trained personnel in innovative spheres, the state provides Azerbaijani students with the possibility of studying abroad.

Thus, as soon as local labor market participants gain technical skills in essential areas, the demand for foreign specialists will decrease in Azerbaijan.

URL: http://www.today.az/news/business/142650.html

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