Azerbaijan, Baku / Trend / Over 20,000 foreign labour migrants work in Azerbaijan, while only 24.5% of them have registered.
An expert at Trend analytical centre, Leyla Abdullayeva, said that the number of the migrants arriving in Azerbaijan is constantly increasing.
According to official data provided by the Migration Service, 7,940 foreigners registered in Azerbaijan in the first quarter of 2006, while 9,430 registered in the first quarter of 2007. The more Azerbaijan's economy improves in the world the flow of labour migrants increases.
"Migration is a complex process both positively and negatively affecting different sides of the socio-economic life of present-day Azerbaijan," Abdullayeva said. Migration should be viewed as a positive event that is now occurring and will always occur all over the world. "Foreigners bring to Azerbaijan new investments and new technologies," the expert said.
On the other hand, in her opinion, the migration process occurring in Azerbaijan today causes serious problems to the indigenous population. "First of all, migration causes unemployment as the migrants partially occupy jobs and cheapen the labour of the indigenous population," Abdullayeva said.
Deterioration is noticed in the public's social state, rise in prices of homes and food, problems with providing healthcare services and social security due to overloading. Illegal foreign migrants are not engaged in officially registered jobs and profoundly affect the labour market, evade from taxes and get involved in shade economy, and thus harm the state.