Every work is held in high esteem by us – Newspaper Kommersant No. 51 (7496) dated 03/27/2023

Demand for workers in Russia remains high in the first quarter of 2023, according to data from recruitment agencies. Many companies have adapted to the new situation and unfrozen their hiring plans. Among the scarce personnel are the owners of workers and engineering specialties employed in the agro-industrial complex, as well as specialists associated with import substitution and sanctions. Experts predict that without new economic shocks, the activity of employers will continue until the end of the year. This, however, will have little effect on wages: they are growing sluggishly and are likely to decline in real terms by the end of the year.

In the first quarter of 2023, the labor market showed a high demand for labor, according to estimates from recruitment agencies. According to a survey by the Rabota.ru service (300 employers from all regions of the Russian Federation), 61% of respondents retained or expanded their staff in the first quarter, 15% opened new areas of activity, 13% increased the number of clients (the same number lost).

Employers in the first months of the year were actively looking for employees, confirms Olga Voroshilova, a partner at Cornerstone. Director of Ventra HR Services Yuriy Efrosinin also notes an increase in demand for employees, although he points out that companies are “cautious in their approach to hiring.” “Many entered the new year with “unfrozen” hiring and the ability to hire employees at new rates,” says Ekaterina Kotova, managing consultant at Get experts. “This indicates a growing adaptation of the market to economic turbulence: many have developed a new development strategy for themselves, formed product portfolios, mapped out the routing, and moved into action.”

Igor Polyakov from TsMASF notes that in January the total demand for jobs (taking into account the number of employed and vacancies) reached a record high of 74.7 million people. “We can assume that in February and March the demand for labor, although it decreased, still remained at a high level,” he says. Recall that the unemployment rate in January updated a historical low, dropping to 3.6%.

Given the activity of employers, a number of specialties have long become scarce. Thus, the respondents of “Rabota.ru” reported a shortage of representatives of working professions. According to Sergei Tsukhlo, head of the Gaidar Institute’s market research laboratory, in March the balance of industrialists’ hiring plans reached a maximum in 14 years. “It is very difficult to close vacancies, for example, chief engineer, chief technologist,” adds Olga Voroshilova. There is a shortage of specialists both in the agro-industrial complex and in narrow-profile niches related to “work” with sanctions, interaction with foreign companies and import substitution, Ekaterina Kotova notes.

At the same time, the shortage of workers did not cause a massive increase in wages. According to Rabota.ru, only a third of companies (31%) raised them in the first quarter. “In money” vacancies are not growing, Olga Voroshilova confirms. However, according to Ekaterina Kotova, the number of counteroffers is growing when companies outbid the specialists they need. Experts believe that by the end of the year the situation on the labor market is likely to change little. “The market has entered a new regime characterized by an extremely high level of vacancies and an extremely low unemployment rate,” says Rostislav Kapelyushnikov, deputy director of the Center for Labor Studies at the Higher School of Economics. At the same time, he did not rule out that in the event of a new economic shock, employers will optimize labor costs in the traditional way – by reducing working hours or the variable part of wages. Yuri Efrosinin believes that wage growth by the end of the year will be 8-12%. According to the forecast of the CMASF, the growth of wages this year will not be able to overtake inflation: the decline in real wages will be 0.2% -1.2%.

Anastasia Manuylova