Companies are facing a record shortage of staff in 2023. Every second company in Russia complains about the shortage of employees, according to a study of the Institute of National Economy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Kommersant writes about it.
The reasons for the staff shortage are the recruitment of volunteers for the war in Ukraine, the mass emigration of Russians and the restructuring of the economy after the pandemic, the Institute’s experts explain.
Similar in scale staffing shortages were observed in 2021, when companies began to actively recruit after the pandemic. The authors of the study concluded that labor shortages correlate with the growth and decline of the country’s economy.
Now the staffing shortage has become especially evident against the backdrop of economic recovery: a year after the invasion of Ukraine and Russia falling under sanctions, 31.5% of surveyed companies believe that they have not been affected, although in 2022 the proportion was 18%.
Against the backdrop of personnel shortages in Russia, the number of vacancies is growing sharply. According to a study by Avito Rabota, in the first six months of 2023 their number increased by 93%, and for the year – 175% (from June 2022 to June 2023). According to HeadHunter, the number of job offers from June 2022 to June 2023 increased by 65%.
Against the backdrop of staffing hunger, Russian authorities say the unemployment rate is at a record low. “Unemployment is 3.3%. It has never been this low before in our history”, President Vladimir Putin said at SPIEF.
According to Rosstat, unemployment is indeed at an all-time record low (since 1991) of 3.2% as of May. However, these figures are precisely due to the labor shortage, which rose to record levels after the mobilization. In April 2023, more than a third (35%) of industrial enterprises reported a shortage of employees, according to a study by the Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy. The study by the Yegor Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy (IEP).
“Usually a decline in unemployment is indicative of job growth and economic recovery. That’s why the authorities are so promoting their ‘achievement”, said economist and professor of the Department of Geography at Moscow State University Natalia Zubarevich. According to her, the low level of unemployment now has little correlation with the growth of employment.
“The main reason is the reduction by more than a quarter of the population in the young working-age population due to the peculiarities of the Russian age pyramid. The second reason is the mobilization of 300,000 men who dropped out of the labor market (most of them lived in medium and small towns and rural areas), and the departure abroad of at least half a million people, mostly residents of large cities”, writes the economist.
