Expats Target Russia in a bid to Avoid Eurozone Crisis

Expats are ditching the Eurozone in favor of job opportunities in Russia in order to avoid the Euro-crisis according to recruiting experts.

Talking to Russian newspaper Kommersant, Page Personnel, representative Artyom Ivakin revealed that the number of applicants from candidates from overseas has tripled since 2010. However, while there are more applicants from abroad, it is interesting to note that job seekers have lowered their career and salary expectations since 2011: “The main difference in today’s situations is expat’s willingness to take not only managerial positions, but also accept second- or third-rank occupations,” Ivakin told Kommersant.

Kelly Services General Director Yekaterina Gorokhova agreed: “It is common now when a foreigner bids for such positions as mid-level marketing director or manager of any department, whereas 7-9 years ago people came from abroad mostly to run or develop global business,”

According to The Moscow Times the majority of the new CVs that are being submitted to major Russian recruitment sites such as HeadHunter.ru are from candidates who are looking to exit the Euro zone, where the current crisis seriously threatens job security and had dampened the job market. While candidates from the U.S. and Canada are not as common, international specialists are still interested in positions in the oil and gas industry, and especially in investment and private banking sectors, Andrew Kamnev, head of the business development department in Brainpower CIS, told the paper.

The experts who shared their opinion with Kommersant all agreed said that Russia was still an attractive employment destination for international specialists despite the fact that salaries and benefits are not as high as they were in the pre-crisis years.