At the limit of research – Newspaper Kommersant No. 21 (7466) dated 02/06/2023

In late 2022 and early 2023, structural shifts began to appear in the labor market in Russia, which, apparently, will only intensify in the near future. At the end of 2022, unemployment remained at a historical low, real wages grew at the level of inflation, but outpacing labor productivity growth, and every second company experienced a shortage of personnel, according to the Bank of Russia. In a recent regional review, the Bank of Russia records an increase in personnel competition from defense industry enterprises and an increase in problems in civilian industries, where they have switched to hiring young people, women and older employees.

Surveys of industrial enterprises by the Gaidar Institute (IEP) and S&P Global record an increase in hiring in early 2023 and a slight decrease in the shortage of personnel: in January, according to the IEP, it was reported by 33% against 43% in December and 36% in October 2022. In January, they were going to expand the hiring of new employees not only in industry, but also in other sectors of the economy. However, in September-November 2022, this growth has not yet compensated for the “previously formed downward trend” in employers’ interest in hiring, CMASF analysts noted, also noting the continuation of interest in hiring in early 2023. “In September 2022, year-on-year data showed a 370,000 fall in manufacturing employment, the highest of any major sector and the fastest rate of job destruction since Covid 2020. Attributing this reduction to mobilization will not work – the fall was divided almost evenly: minus 185 thousand jobs for both women and men, ”Alexander Isakov from Bloomberg Economics describes the previous autumn trend.

However, this release is unlikely to qualitatively solve the problem of staff shortages. According to surveys, it looks most noticeable in the same industry, but, according to the February review of regional economies by the Central Bank, in December the problem in the Russian Federation concerned 45% of companies: 55% in processing (in mechanical engineering – 66%, in metallurgy – 48%) , 48% – in construction, 46% – in the agro-industrial complex, the same number in the transport and storage sector, and 41% – in services. And although “by the end of 2022, the scale of part-time employment and the risks of rising unemployment have decreased, the shortage of personnel has increased, especially strong in specialties requiring high qualifications,” the authors of the review note. The increased competition among employers “was the result, on the one hand, of a long-term trend of reducing the number of the workforce, on the other hand, of structural changes in the economy that led to an increase in the need for personnel at enterprises producing import-substituting products,” concludes the Central Bank.

The problem of shortage of personnel is associated not only with a decrease in their supply, but also with a lack of qualifications and an increase in wages due to the competition of employers, as well as with an increase in demand from import-substituting industries (engineering, shipbuilding, petrochemistry, production of metal structures, etc.) and DIC, who hired “specialists in working specialties (locksmiths, welders, assemblers, machine operators, drivers) and engineering and technical personnel.” Due to the increase in their salaries, “producers of civilian products faced an outflow of labor resources,” the Central Bank notes, noting that only 6% of enterprises report an increase in the shortage of personnel due to “partial mobilization.”

At the same time, as the authors of the regional review of the Central Bank note, since the fall of 2022, support from the federal government has primarily been directed “to provide factories and individual enterprises of the defense industry with labor resources … the influx of immigrants from Ukraine and new Russian territories did not have a significant impact on the labor markets of most regions.” Moreover, the economists of the Bank of Russia record the outflow of personnel from the southern regions of the Russian Federation to the “new Russian territories”, as there are big salaries offered there.

In the non-military sectors, companies are adapting to shortages by automating, increasing shifts, and hiring “younger and older women and men in traditionally masculine jobs.” Companies that experienced problems with imported parts, equipment and components were more likely than others to resort to part-time employment and in some cases intend to move to reduce employment this year.

Artem Chugunov