How Many Ethnic Kazakhs Returned to Kazakhstan?

More than 16.5 thousand ethnic Kazakhs received the status of Qandas in the first 10 months of 2024, Orda.kz reports.

As the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Population specifies, 16,535 ethnic Kazakhs have returned to their historical homeland and received the status since the beginning of the year.

 45.9% of the Qandas who arrived in Kazakhstan since the beginning of 2024 are from China, 39.2% are from Uzbekistan, 5.8% are from Mongolia, 5.2% are from Turkmenistan, 2.8% are from Russia and 1.1% are from other countries. The share of ethnic migrants of working age is 57.4%, minors - 33.2% and pensioners - 9.4%. Of the Qandas of working age, 17.8% have higher education, 24.8% have secondary specialized education, 54.4% have general secondary education and 3% have no education, the Ministry reported.

The Ministry clarifies that the following regions with labor shortages have been identified for resettling: Aqmola, Abay, Qostanay, Pavlodar, East Kazakhstan, and North Kazakhstan.

The quota for the 2024 resettlement regions is 3,033 people. As of November 1, 2024, 2,841 Qandas have been resettled to the specified regions.

State support measures include a one-time subsidy of 70 MCI (258.4 thousand tenge) for the head and each member of the family for moving and a monthly subsidy of 15 to 30 MCI (from 55.3 thousand to 110.7 thousand tenge) for renting housing and paying for utilities for one year.

Since the beginning of the year, 2,390 Qandas have received various support measures. In particular, 763 people were employed with permanent jobs.

In total, 1 million 144.9 thousand ethnic Kazakhs have returned to the republic since 1991.

Original Author: Anastasia Prilepskaya