ASTANA (TCA) — More than 32 thousand work permits were given to foreign nationals in Kazakhstan last year, according to the country’s Ministry of Health and Social Development, the official website of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan reported on February 8.
According to the ministry, as of 1 January 2016, Kazakhstan had issued 32,363 permits for attracting foreign labor force (FLF), including 1,987 permits issued for the first category (managers and their deputies) and 5,958 permits issued for the second category (heads of departments).
According to the ministry, currently there are 1,592 employers with foreign labor force in Kazakhstan. They employ about 468 thousand citizens of Kazakhstan, accounting for 93.3 percent of the total number of employees. Foreign workers are mainly from China (13,373), Turkey (4,844), Ukraine (1,620), Uzbekistan (1,303), and India (1,235).
Last year the employers attracting foreign labor force created 25,447 jobs in Kazakhstan, 5,428 Kazakhstan citizens received professional training and retraining, 12,639 local employees raised their qualification, and 55 foreign experts were replaced with local personnel.
In order to protect domestic labor market, the Government of Kazakhstan annually fixes quotas to attract foreign labor force.
For this year, the quota has been set at 0.7 percent of the economically active population of the country (about 63.1 thousand people).
Many foreign specialists are employed in the oil and gas sector of Kazakhstan.
