From February 1, unemployment benefits will be indexed: who will be paid 13 thousand

From February 1 of this year, citizens who have lost their jobs will receive an important social innovation: in Russia they will begin to index unemployment benefits annually. The increase rate will be determined by the government based on the increase in consumer prices over the previous year. How will this innovation affect the unemployment situation and the employment market in the country?

Let’s be honest: the indexation of benefits coming from February is unlikely to improve the financial situation of the unemployed in any way. Starting this year, the minimum wage will be 1,613 rubles. And the maximum speed is 13.7 thousand. It is unlikely that anyone will be able to last a month, even receiving the maximum benefit, and the minimum benefit will only be enough for a couple of trips to the grocery store.

According to the law, those who have not previously worked for hire, that is, those who have no work experience, receive the minimum amount. And also those who have had a break in work for more than a year. Or those who worked less than 26 weeks in the year before dismissal. This is their unenviable lot: being stuck on an allowance of 1,600 rubles.

By and large, the situation is not much better for those who are assigned the maximum payments: 13.7 thousand rubles. This amount is established only for the first three months, and then, if the unemployed cannot find a job, it will be gradually reduced, and by the end of the year of tireless searches it will amount to no more than 5 thousand rubles.

It hardly needs saying that benefits can somehow make ends meet. There is one consolation: at the end of last year, the unemployment rate in the country dropped to a historical low – 2.9%. But if these percentages are “calculated by heads”, then there will be 2.2 million people.

By the way, not every one of them will be able to obtain unemployed status in the future. Because according to the new version of the law, the requirements for applicants are becoming more stringent. In particular, now an individual job search plan must be agreed upon with the employment service. Those who, within 10 days after registration, refused two options for suitable work offered to them will not receive status either.

– Unemployment benefits, unlike other social benefits, have never been indexed before? – we ask Lyudmila Ivanova-Shvets, associate professor of the department of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation “Human Resource Management” of the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics.

“They were periodically increased,” she answers. – There simply was no system that is being introduced now: mandatory annual indexation to last year’s inflation from February 1. And 5-6 years ago the minimum wage was, if I’m not mistaken, 700 or 800 rubles.

– From the point of view of purchasing power, the current 1613 rubles are not much different…

– Unemployment benefits are not a way to solve all a person’s financial problems at the expense of the state, but temporary social support for the period while he is looking for work. It encourages him not to sit idly by, but to quickly find a job, look for something to do in order to receive a decent salary.

The benefit level is a double-edged sword. Here is an example from the experience of the European Union. Everyone wonders why students in Sweden don’t look for work after graduating. Because until the age of 27, they are legally paid unemployment benefits. So they are in no hurry. Although the benefits are small, you can somehow live on them.

– Let’s return to Russia. According to the new law “On Employment”, when obtaining unemployed status, the amount of salary is no longer taken into account?

– It has not been taken into account for a long time, since 2002. Then the law stated that for some time an unemployed person receives 75% of his average income, then this figure was gradually reduced: 60, 45%… Now the maximum unemployment benefit should not be higher than the subsistence level in a given region.

– But it turns out that it is lower! The average monthly wage in Russia per capita this year is 15,453 rubles. And the maximum unemployment rate is 13.7 thousand.

-Yes, this was done on purpose: to encourage people to look for a job. Today this is not a problem at all; there are many vacancies in employment services and new training programs. You can quite easily retrain or get a new specialty.

– It is officially believed that last year there were about 2.2 million unemployed in Russia. But this figure hardly reflects the real situation. After all, what’s the point of going to the labor exchange to receive symbolic payments?

– In Moscow, the official unemployment rate is 0.1-0.2%. Only pre-retirees or those who were laid off due to staff reduction or liquidation of the enterprise are registered. But not to find a job, but to receive benefits. And in the Ivanovo region, unemployment is about 10%, and people there are much more actively turning to employment services for benefits. For them, a couple of thousand rubles a month is also money.

But to some extent, you are right: some refuse to become unemployed. As one young man told me, while I am looking for a job at the employment service, I will spend more on travel than the amount of the benefit. If we take, for example, the Krasnoyarsk Territory, then the employment service there may be located 200 kilometers from home. And you need to visit it periodically so as not to lose your unemployed status.