«The forecasts that Ukrainians would return en masse to their homeland did not come true,» he said at a press conference in Kyiv. According to the expert, by the beginning of this year, about 1.7 million Ukrainians were working in European Union countries, and 2-3 million in Russia.
According to his data, the most humane attitude towards migrants from Ukraine is in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland, while the harshest is in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom: only 30-35% of the total number of labor migrants have legal status, but this figure continues to grow.
The expert reported that the economic crisis is leading to an increase in the intensity of foreign movements of labor migrants in the wake of large-scale investment projects. In particular, preparations for the Olympic Games in the United Kingdom are attracting Ukrainian workers to that country.
Furthermore, according to I. Markov, the economic crisis in Ukraine gives reason to expect an increase in the amount of money transfers to the country from labor migrants.
According to his data, about 80% of Ukrainian workers say they are ready to return to Ukraine someday, but as a rule, they do not have a clear plan for this: earning money remains a priority.
At the same time, Igor Markov noted that many migrants feel like strangers in Ukraine, where relatives view them only as financial donors, and the state does not provide adequate support for their adaptation. The expert called this one of the reasons for repeated departures from the country.
Regarding tough measures to combat migration, including the introduction of biometric control at borders, the representative of the Ukrainian Center for Social Research noted that they only slow down the movement of relevant flows for a certain time and stimulate the shadow sector of migration services.
As reported during the press conference by Mikhail Babirenko, regional manager of the representative office of Western Union Financial Services GmbH in Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Moldova, in Ukraine in 2008 the volume of official money transfers amounted to about 2% of GDP. At the same time, transfers to Ukraine mainly come from Russia, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the USA and Western European countries. At the same time, as Interfax-Ukraine reports, the largest volumes of transfers from Ukraine are sent to CIS countries - Russia, the Caucasus countries and Central Asian countries.