 not home alone global economic crisis slows armenian workers migration armenian villagers who starting from march each year used to go abroad to work particularly in russia are not in hurry to leave their motherland this year closed doors and rejections await them because of the economic crisis outside armenia people were mostly hired as construction workers or renovated apartments on their own the results are clearly noticeable in gegharkunik province which according to a statistical research conducted in 20022007 by advanced social technologies ngo with the assistance of osce yerevan office has the highest outmigration index 15 percent of the 26200 residents have emigrated the number of work migrants from the 4975resident vaghashen village was 300350 every year but now according to aram hunanyan secretary of the rural administration body it has reduced by 85 percent about45 people have left and there are no jobs in our region ordinary peasants only harvest potatoes and cabbage on this land but last year the supply exceeded the demand and the peasants sold 1 kg of potatoes for only 4050 dram 1316 cent which naturally is not enough to support a family says hunanyan residents of this village were mainly leaving for the russian federation to work in the construction sphere one of them was 48year old armen hunanyan who worked on the construction of elite buildings cottages and roads in the city of tver this year i am not going because i have called my friends there and they told me people are being laid off there are no new workplaces he returned in november having received his salary for 5 months 1890000 dram 6300 of which 390000 dram 1300 was spent on living there and paying the travel expenses the rest of the money was used to start the construction of his private house but if i don t go there to work again the construction here will remain unfinished he was able to find work at the rural administrative body related to enforcement of army conscripts where he earns 40000 dram 133 his wife is a schoolteacher and earns 89000 dram 296 the amount is enough for them to support their 3 children his relative 35year old darvin hunanyan has not found a job yet his wife 30year old marine sukiasyan says they already have debts at the shop because for the past 5 years the family lived exclusively on the 240000 dram 800 a month which the husband earned working as a builder in moscow we have two sons one is 11 the other is 6 years old my mother and fatherinlaw live with us and don t get any pension yet we have one cow and a calf and a small patch of land where we grow potatoes she says one of the several venturing residents of vaghashen is sargis hayrapetyan 35 a father of two children he left for tula on march 14 to work there he does woodprocessing he used to earn 300000 dram 1000 before this time they did not name any specific figure but they warned that they would pay little said his wife 35year old hermine yeghiazaryan according to the state employment service data 53 percent of the population in the provinces don t have jobs according to the statistical research conducted by advanced social technologies ngo in 20022007 about 230000 people have emigrated from the whole territory of ra in the past 5 years each migrant has traveled abroad 2 times on average 96 percent went to russia the ra international organization on migration stated in its 2008 report that money transfers from the diaspora account for 20 percent of the gdp 70 percent of which comes from russia last year the money transfers made by physical persons through banks with noncommercial purposes reached nearly 5 billion drams 16 billion compared to last year this year s transfers have reduced by 25 percent said zaruhi barseghyan the central bank press secretary in january this year for example 165 billion drams 555 million were transferred whereas last year it was about 21 billion dram 70 million data referring to 2009 are still is the processing stage and cannot be published and irina davtyan head of the department of the ra agency on migration programs of the regional management ministry says it is not hard to guess that the number equaling to 5060000 work migrants will noticeably decrease because of the economic crisis in any case according to the data on their official website in january 2008 6965 left armenia for migrant work this january however only 2686 left this economic disease has also done harm to the people who already live in the russian federation for instance a resident of urtsadzor village in ararat province 30year old zhirayr margaryan according to his mother rima margaryan stopped working since november and was not paid his salary 1100000 dram 3600 for the previous few months they say let him come here and work but i don t know if they will pay him or not the mother says her husband s income has also decreased my husband hamlet has been a bus driver for 10 years now people are not going to work anymore and whereas before they sold 800 tickets and got a 1000 income each month now they sell 500 and get a 600 income economist tatul manaseryan predicts that people from rural communities will continue to face problems unemployment decrease of buying ability these issues can be solved if ra government organizes community work if they design projects aimed at stimulating economy and create new jobs  