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President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has instructed regional governors, ambassadors and vocational college heads to fundamentally change how Uzbekistan prepares citizens for work abroad, insisting that every migrant should leave the country with a confirmed job, a known wage and guaranteed protection of their labour rights.
“A person must master their profession completely, know their own worth and be able to rely on their country,” Mirziyoyev said at a government meeting devoted to labour migration policy.
The president framed the directive around a structural mismatch he said already exists: global demand for workers is rising at the same time as large numbers of Uzbek citizens want employment overseas. The task, he argued, is to match the two more systematically and at higher skill levels.
Fewer migrants, far more money sent home
Officials presented figures showing that over the past decade the number of Uzbek citizens working abroad has fallen by half, while the total volume of remittances they send home has increased fourfold. Authorities attribute the divergence to a shift in the type of work migrants take on: citizens are increasingly going abroad as qualified specialists rather than in unskilled roles.
The country has also expanded the number of partner states for organised labour migration from three to 27, and the number of large foreign employers cooperating with Uzbekistan has grown to nearly 400.
Despite the overall improvement, remittance data broken down by region reveals sharp disparities. Workers from Fergana Oblast send home an average of $1,800 per person per month. By contrast, the figure stands at roughly $400 in Karakalpakstan and Tashkent Oblast, $500 in Syrdarya Oblast, $600 in Jizzakh and Navoiy oblasts, and below $700 in Surkhandarya and Khorezm oblasts.
Employer partnerships and pre-departure guarantees
Mirziyoyev pointed to existing cooperation agreements with partners from Germany, Turkey, Slovakia and Qatar as models to be replicated more widely. Under those arrangements, foreign employers are linked directly to Uzbek technical colleges, which train workers to the employer’s specifications before placing them in jobs abroad.
The president said the pre-departure guarantee — knowing where one will work, what one will earn and who will defend one’s rights — should become the standard rather than the exception for all organised migration channels.
The meeting did not set a specific numerical target for expanding the programme, but the instruction to hokims and ambassadors signals that regional administrations and diplomatic missions will be expected to take a more active role in brokering and supervising overseas placements.