Chinese Citizens compose more than a third of migrant workers in Kazakhstan

Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Republic of Kazakhstan reports that more than 35% of all foreign nationals officially working in Kazakhstan are Chinese citizens.
Local executive authorities issued permits to 14,103 foreign citizens in total, as of December 1, 2025.
Particularly, Chinese nationals comprise the largest group of labor migrants (5,604 individuals) and represent over 35% of the total. Then follow citizens of Uzbekistan (2,110 people, about 15%), Turkey (1,036 people, over 7%), and India (943 people, more than 6%). Roughly 35% of the foreign labor force is made up of migrants from other countries.
Totally, they issued 537 permits for foreign labor to managers and their deputies (first category) and 2,244 to heads of structural divisions (second category) in 2025. The third and fourth categories embrace most foreign workers. There are also specialists (3,784 people) and skilled workers (1,271 people). Seasonal work got 2,299 permits were, and corporate transfers accounted for 3,970.
According to the ministry, 1,817 employers in Kazakhstan currently utilize foreign labor. Nevertheless, more than 334,000 Kazakhstani citizens make up about 96% of their total workforce.
Just over 35% of foreign workers (4,993 people) are employed in construction. 2,316 workers, or 16.5%, work in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries. 1,235 workers, about 9%, are employed in mining and quarrying, and 1,155 workers, approximately 8%, work in manufacturing.
Also, an annual quota for the employment of foreign workers is set by Kazakhstan for the sake of the domestic labor market. It equaled to 0.2% of the workforce, or 14,800 permits in 2025. Then, regional authorities requested to raise this figure to 16,500 in March.
Later, they increased the quota further to 0.25% or 19,400 permits in August. The reason was that the list of professions eligible for seasonal foreign workers has expanded. After that, they revised the quota down to 16,700 permits, due to updated regional needs.
According to the Times of Central Asia, more than 80,000 Russian citizens got residence permits to work in Kazakhstan between January 2023 and September 2024.

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