Kazakhstan Eyes Labor Deals as 126,000 Citizens Work Overseas

Kazakh First Vice Minister of Labor and Social Protection Askarbek Yertayev has announced that more than 126,000 Kazakh citizens are currently employed outside the country.

Yertayev made these remarks during a Senate briefing, The Caspian Post informs via Kazakh media.

Drawing on data from the Foreign Ministry, Yertayev said that an estimated 102,000 Kazakhs are working in Russia, 15,000 in South Korea, and approximately 2,000 across the UK and EU member states.

He added that Kazakhstan plans to broaden its international cooperation on official employment by pursuing new bilateral agreements with European countries and South Korea. “While not all major destinations yet have formal agreements, we intend to establish similar frameworks - especially with EU nations,” Yertayev said, citing Clause 34 of Kazakhstan’s Migration Policy Concept, which outlines measures to support labor migration to the most common employment destinations for Kazakh citizens.

In related developments, the Senate recently ratified an agreement between Kazakhstan and Qatar regulating the employment of Kazakh workers in the Gulf state, expanding the framework for labor migration beyond traditional partner countries.