Uzbekistan Quality Job Creation as a Cornerstone for Sustainable Economic Growth

Unlocking the Potential for Labor Productivity Growth
Similarly, Irnazarov (2015) points out that a majority of remittances are spent 
on “unproductive” items. Expenditures on traditional rites (e.g., weddings and 
funerals) are the third highest category (of seven) for remittance expenditure, 
after food and housing. Other categories include clothing, education, health, and 
debt repayment. Furthermore, that the majority of remittances are transmitted 
via money transfer operators implies that the remittances are more likely to 
be spent quickly than money sent through the banking sector, which is more 
likely to be retained in the form of deposits and therefore possesses a greater 
potential for economic development by funding investment (Kakhkharov and 
Akimov 2014).
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Receiving countries, such as the Russian Federation, benefit from the skills of 
migrant workers, and their willingness to perform jobs that are often refused 
by locals but are important for economic growth. For example, the Russian 
Federation’s construction industry grew largely due to the use of cheap labor 
from abroad (Ryazantsev 2016). 
Migrant workers usually have higher levels of cognitive and noncognitive skills 
than nonmigrants, and high-skilled workers are in general four times more 
likely to migrate abroad than low-skilled ones (Kerr et al. 2016). Although skill-
biased migration increases global welfare, an excessive “brain drain” poses 
a threat to the migrants’ home country (Biavaschi et al. 2016). For example, 
monitoring of the Asian Development Bank’s water and sanitation projects in 
Uzbekistan suggests that in some project areas, insufficient working-age males 
are available to take part in community planning and priority setting (ADB 
2014). On the positive side, returning migrant workers are more capable of 
contributing to their home country’s labor force after gaining experience and 
enhancing their skills in foreign countries (Ajwad et al. 2014). Rahmatullaevich 
(2012) finds that 2 in 10 migrants claim that they gained a new skill while 
working abroad.
3.6. Policy recommendations
The government is pursuing new ideas and principles to sustain the country’s 
development through its Action Strategy for Five Priority Areas of the 
Republic of Uzbekistan 2017–2021 (Government of Uzbekistan 2017a). 
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In 2016, Uzbekistan received $2.48 billion in remittances, of which $1.89 billion (or 76% of total remittances) 
was sent from the Russian Federation alone through money transfer operators (World Bank. World 
Development Indicators. http://datatopics.worldbank.org/world-development-indicators/ [accessed 7 
August 2019] and Central Bank of Russia. Cross-Border Transfers of Individuals. https://www.cbr.ru/eng/
statistics/macro_itm/svs/ [accessed 8 August 2019]). 

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