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Today more than half a million Azerbaijani citizens work in the countries of the near abroad. These are first of all Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Georgia, Azer Allahveranov, Azerbaijani expert on migration, told Echo.az. 

According to the expert, 572 thousand Azerbaijani citizens live on the territory of the Russian Federation today. Around 492 thousand of them are engaged in labor activities. Many Azerbaijanis are employed in the informal sector.

Moreover, qualified personnel leave Azerbaijan. Doctors, in particular, prefer emigrating to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. According to kavpolit.com, a nurse’s salary is $1,200, and a doctor gets $1,800 in the Kingdom, which is much higher than that in Azerbaijan (the doctors get $150), the article reads.

“While the majority of the Azerbaijanis in Russia and Turkey work, the number of the labor migrants and students is very small in the West: the majority of the Azerbaijani citizens live there as refugees and political migrants. IOM estimates 50 thousand Azerbaijani citizens living in the EU, yet the experts confess that the real number is higher and no one will take up estimating it exactly,” the article reads.

It is also noted that 44 thousand Azerbaijanis have applied for asylum in the US and EU, primarily in Sweden and Germany, during 1991-2006. Among the European countries Germany is most concerned regarding the presence of the Azerbaijanis. It has more than once appealed to the leadership of Azerbaijan requesting to take its citizens back. 

According to the outlet, the majority of the Azerbaijanis work as unskilled labor force in construction, and the women work as nurses, sitters and hotel maids. Around 1,500 Azerbaijanis study in the US and EU, still they are not willing to go back to their homeland. Even if the young specialists find a work in Azerbaijan after getting education in the West, they later emigrate back.