The Impact of the Interplay Between Internal and External Labor Migration on Labor Market Functioning in Uzbekistan

Labor mobility in Uzbekistan unfolds simultaneously at two spatial scales: internal movement between regions and toward the Tashkent agglomeration, and external movement toward Russia, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Türkiye and, increasingly, Europe. The scale of the latter is considerable: in 2025 remittance inflows reached USD 18.9 billion, 28 percent more than in 2024 [1], and the share of cross-border remittances in household income nationwide rose from 16.5 to 21 percent, exceeding 30 percent in several regions [2]. Yet policy and research frequently treat the two forms of mobility in isolation, even though they draw on the same pool of labor and respond to the same regional wage and employment gaps.