Computer chairs are free – Newspaper Kommersant No. 14 (7459) of 01/26/2023

Recruitment portals are noticing an increase in the number of vacancies for IT specialists. It began in November 2022, when businesses had certainty about projects for 2023, and intensified in January due to the discussed initiatives of the authorities to ban work from abroad. A number of companies have already begun to reduce remote workers and open new vacancies, while others, on the contrary, register legal entities abroad in order to retain and register employees there.

Kommersant got acquainted with the data of the recruiting service HeadHunter (hh.ru), according to which the number of vacancies for IT specialists in Russia for incomplete January 2023 amounted to 58.7 thousand, which is 63% more year-on-year. The increase in the number of vacancies began in November, the service specified: from March to October 2022, the average number of vacancies did not exceed 88 thousand, and in November it already amounted to 90 thousand. Portal experts expect that by the end of January, taking into account the holidays, the number of vacancies will exceed this meaning. Responses to vacancies at the beginning of 2023 also increased by 64% – 3.6 million.

hh.ru specialists explain the situation by the recovery in demand for specialists after “there was certainty with IT projects for 2023.” A certain role, they specify in the service, was also played by the autumn wave of relocation: “Some of the employees could quit when moving to another country.” Now, according to hh.ru, the professions of engineers, programmers and developers, web-engineers, system administrators, analysts and game developers are most needed. The average salary is 60-150 thousand rubles. per month.

The growth in demand for IT specialists is also confirmed in the Avito Rabota service: at the end of 2022, there were 7% more vacancies on the platform year-on-year, and in January there was an increase of 52% at once. The median salary, that is, the amount more and less than which 50% of employees receive, in the IT industry, according to Avito Rabota, last year amounted to 40 thousand rubles, which is 14% higher than in 2021, and in January increased to 45 thousand rubles.

The growth in demand for specialists is confirmed by Kommersant in IT companies: right now, more than 1,000 vacancies are open at Yandex, its press service said. “However, we do not observe a non-standard outflow of employees from the company and do not expect it in the future,” the company assured Kommersant. In the fall of 2022, in the financial report, Yandex reported that due to the “unwanted outflow of developers”, it became more difficult to hire employees and retain them (see “Kommersant” dated November 3, 2022).

MTS Digital also talks about the activation of hiring: in 2022 it quadrupled, to 220 people per month. The company explains this by the development of new products. They believe that in the coming years, the shortage of IT specialists will worsen, and the number of vacancies per resume will double.

According to Rosstat, in April 2022 alone, the Russian Federation needed more than a million IT specialists, which accounted for 1.8% of the capacity of the entire labor market, reminds Georgy Babayan, founder of the Elbrus Bootcamp programming school. The increase in vacancies now is a natural consequence of curbing the growth of staff in 2022, says Elena Gerasimova, head of additional professional education at Netology: “But the shortage of personnel in Russia currently persists, the current increase in the number of entry-level specialists cannot yet satisfy the shortage progressed over the years.

At the same time, the HR director of one of the Russian IT companies explains the current rise in the number of vacancies by the fact that many are now firing and laying off “remote workers”: “This is due to tax residency and the tightening of remote work rules that they want to introduce. Accordingly, the places of “remote workers” are vacated, and new vacancies are opening up.

Kommersant’s interlocutor in one of the large Russian companies agrees that “such a trend is really noticeable in the market and is associated with the requirements of regulators.” In December, the deputy head of the United Russia faction, Andrey Isaev, announced that a bill would be submitted to the State Duma that prohibits remote work from abroad, but not for everyone, but only for certain specialists in a number of areas. As a result, companies are now working on different formats for retaining key experts, Kommersant’s interlocutors say. Some, as an alternative, create subsidiaries abroad, where they re-register employees.

Tatiana Isakova, Valeria Lebedeva