The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Population of Azerbaijan announced its plans with regards to the migration activities in 2007. The Head of the Ministry Migration Department, Rauf Tagiyev, informed Trend that the plans include to maximally legalize the labor activities of non-residents in Azerbaijan. It needs to strengthen the work in several directions to obtain positive results, including preparing amendments to the legislation regarding the migration and improve the mechanism to implement them. For this purpose, it also needs to co-ordinate the activities with other organizations in the country.
Presently number of foreigners who have permit for the labor activities in Azerbaijan equal 1,315. They work mainly in the oil sector. Most of them are citizens of Turkey, India, and United Kingdom. However, it is a small part of the migrants. We intend to make amendments to the legislation to attract all of them in the legalization. For this purpose, we carry out enlightenment work for employers and have already offered amendments to the legislation on migration. The employers should conclude labor contract only with those who have got permit for the labor activities, Tagiyev said. Such measures need not only to define the number of the non-residents in the country, but also protect their freedom and social rights.
According to the information of the Azerbaijani Interior Ministry, 27,000 foreign citizens have been registered as people who temporarily live in the territory of Azerbaijan. However, they include people who work within international contracts, people who work in the diplomatic missions and international organizations. There are people who completed their labor activities, but Tagiyev considers that their number is more than 27,000. Presently a State Program on Migration is being carried out (2006-2008), which has been confirmed on 25 July 2006.