Running out of “Secure Armenia”

The government’s agency of official statistics published the recent data on emigration trends.

According to the official statistics, during the first nine months of this year the number of departures from Armenia was 1,118,693 people, and arrivals – 996,492. The difference of arrivals and departures is 122,191. This means in nine months 122,000 people emigrated from Armenia.

This breaks the record of emigration trends since 1990. This is such huge number that is not possible to clear with statistics.

Maybe there are super-positive people who claim that we should not panic. Such people usually say that migration is seasonal and in the end of the year people tend to return. We agree that migration is seasonal, too, but experience of the past years shows that only a part of migrants return. Let’s have a look at the data of the past two years.

The picture shows that in nine months 2012 the difference between departures and arrivals was 109,405. There was also inflow of people in the last three months of 2012, and the emigrate rate reduced. However, the inflow of people did not mitigate emigration results much as the difference was 49.660.

The same assertion is true for 2011, too. The difference of departures and arrivals of the first nine months in 2011 was 98,148, and in the end of the year the final emigration rate was 49,126. This means there is a tendency that in the end of the year emigrate rate tends to reduce, but the growing tendency is very worrisome. In the end of the year we will have an emigration rate of 55-60,000 people for this year. Theoretically it is possible that there may be huge inflow of people and bring this number down. But if this was true, we had to see positive changes in Armenia and hear about families coming back home. However, we see something else as people tend to leave more intensively. Comparison of emigration rates shows that from year to year outflow of people tends to grow.

In the end of the year statistics will show that approximately 150,000 people have left our country during the past three years. In the meantime, unemployment rate has not changed in the country. In the beginning of 2011 the number of registered unemployed people was 84,000, and this year it is 70,000. The fact that the number of unemployed people has reduced by 15-20,000 people during the past three years and 150,000 have left means that most people who emigrate are employed citizens. This assertion is proven by research report recently published by the Kololian Foundation (Canada), according to which causes of emigration are not economic factors only. Focus group discussions and research results show that as the incomes of people grow, their plans to emigrate grow as well. This means that the more families earn, the more they think of emigrating.

Hence it is impossible to make people stay with bread and circuses, which is what the government is doing now.

Below is another sad conclusion.

In 2011 the budget collected AMD777.4 billion tax. In 2012 the amount of tax collected was 878.3 billion. This year the government is planning to collect 993 billion, and next year – 1092.2 billion. Taxes are growing, and the population is declining. This does not mean that the government will fight against businesses that do not pay tax but the load on every person in Armenia will be heavier. Emigrants are leaving, and those who are staying have to bear greater load with smaller resources. They have to bear the heavy load of the same system that made emigration trend a normal process that does not sound strange to anybody’s ears anymore.

By Babken Tunyan