Russia's Federal Migration Service called for amending the law on the legal status of foreigners in the country.

In particular, it proposed to cancel quotas for guest workers whose staying in Russia does not require visas. The proposal was brought forward at a conference over measures to improve the regulation of external labor migration.

The conference was chaired by Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov. "In the condition of increasing labor force shortages in the Russian economy, it is necessary to enhance the country's attractiveness for immigrants," the document said. Issuing work permit quotas for guest workers coming from the states with which Russia has visaless regimes no longer makes sense, especially because "labor migrants from the state with visaless regime states find jobs on their own," according to the proposal. The FMS also proposed to provide for reserve work permits quotas, beginning from 2008, in the amount of at least 50 percent of regions' estimated demand for labor force.

According to the Rostrud Federal Service for Employment and Labor Relations, 12,900 checks of companies using foreign labor force were carried out in the period from January 1 through June 11, 2007.

More than 73,000 violations of labor legislation were exposed, including 27,000 violations in retail trade. Authorities issued some 9,500 instructions on stopping the exposed violations, including 3,600 such instructions in retail trade. Companies paid a total of 3,500 fines worth 7.5 million roubles.

As of June 18, 61 Russian regions submitted the data on attracting foreign workers.

In all, employers sent 13,104 applications for 681,902 jobs. The countries with which Russia has visaless regimes accounted for 420,777 jobs, and other states - for 261,125 jobs.

In the research and application of information found the following website http://www.budgetmoscow.com/news/00064/ was used by Pro-Link Global.