Russian Railways has started bringing in workers from India to plug chronic staffing shortages, marking a significant step in Russia’s turn toward South Asian labour as its domestic workforce shrinks. The first cohort of 35 Indian nationals is now working at the Kuybyshev Infrastructure Directorate in the Volga region; a separate group has been deployed at the Sverdlovsk Railway in the Urals as trackmen — responsible for maintaining and repairing rail infrastructure.
The state-owned monopoly, which operates the world’s second-largest rail network by length, is offering Indian workers the same pay as their Russian counterparts: up to $1,940 a month for a road maintenance foreman and around $1,160 for a dispatcher. The company arranged airport transfers, housing and official registration for the new arrivals, and has set up an onboarding programme covering corporate procedures and regional orientation. Vacancies on the job platform HeadHunter remain open, suggesting demand has not been met.
The recruitment push sits awkwardly alongside Russian Railways’ financial difficulties. The company swung to a net loss of $54 million in the first nine months of 2025, against a profit of $578 million in the same period a year earlier, according to its statutory accounts. In October, management ordered cuts to administrative headcount — a move it said applied to office staff only, not to operational workers. The company has offered no public explanation of how hiring abroad squares with cutting costs at home.
The broader context is a labour market under structural strain. Russia’s working-age population has contracted sharply in recent years, and the traditional pool of migrant workers from Central Asia, which long filled gaps in construction, logistics and infrastructure, is no longer sufficient. India — with a workforce of over 600 million and a well-established emigration infrastructure — has emerged as a leading alternative. Russia issued 56,500 work permits to Indian nationals in 2025, up 56% year-on-year and a nine-year high, according to interior ministry data.
The government is moving to institutionalise the shift. President Vladimir Putin signed a bilateral labour mobility agreement with India during a state visit to New Delhi in December 2025. Russia’s labour ministry has since proposed a 2026 quota of 279,000 workers from India, China, Malaysia, Bangladesh and several African countries — 20% above the previous year’s level, with 92% of places earmarked for skilled industrial roles. With Russia’s state statistics agency projecting a further decline of 1.4 million in the working-age population in 2026, the pressure to look abroad is unlikely to ease.
