Hardly! – Newspaper Kommersant No. 243 (7444) dated 12/29/2022

In November, the number of unemployed in Russia decreased to 2.7 million people, and the unemployment rate renewed its historical low, falling to 3.7% of the economically active population, Rosstat reported. Although deteriorating demographics contributed the most to this decline, in the long term, due to a decrease in the absolute number of unemployed, the importance of state employment support programs, which previously seemed not very large, will increase.

The new all-time low of the unemployment rate of 3.7% is 0.6 percentage points (pp) lower than in November 2021 and 0.2 percentage points lower than in October 2022. In absolute terms, the number of unemployed according to the ILO criteria in November amounted to 2.7 million people. The unemployment rate fell by 0.2 percentage points for both women (to 3.9%) and men (to 3.5%).

The unemployment rate among rural residents (5.1%) significantly exceeds the rate for the urban population (3.2%). The average age of the unemployed is 36.3 years. Young people under 25 years old in this category are 20.4%, persons aged 50 years and older – 18%. Those who have no work experience among the unemployed – 28.2%. The average duration of a job search in November was 6.1 months. Over the year, it decreased by 0.2 weeks, compared to October 2022, it increased by 0.4 weeks.

It should be noted that the new historical minimum of unemployment reached in November could hardly be predicted at the start of the socio-economic crisis that the Russian Federation faced after the start of the military operation in Ukraine. At that time, most forecasts promised an increase in the number of people who lost their jobs, primarily due to the departure of a number of foreign companies from the country.

Statistics do not yet confirm another forecast put forward at the beginning of this year – that even with relatively small fluctuations in the overall unemployment rate, its level will grow strongly in regions where foreign companies or Russian industries acted as backbone enterprises, faced with a drop in demand for their products. . According to Rosstat data for September-November, the highest unemployment rate was recorded in the regions of the North Caucasus – Ingushetia (27.7%), North Ossetia (12.4%) and Dagestan (11.4%). But there these figures are always traditionally higher than in other regions, regardless of the state of the national economy. For most of the federal districts of the Russian Federation, the unemployment rate decreased over the year, the maximum drop was recorded in the Siberian and Southern federal districts – by 1 p.p., to 4% and 3.8%, respectively.

Probably, part of the reduction in unemployment can be linked to the impact of mobilization and the departure of citizens abroad, but now there is no data that would allow us to estimate how many jobs were freed up due to this. In the long term, demographic factors strongly influence the reduction in the number of unemployed – by 2035, the Russian labor market will lose up to 3.9 million people due to the exit from the category of the economically active population of representatives of the relatively large generation born in 1970-1980 (for more details, see “Kommersant” from December 22). The impact on the labor market of state programs to support employment, most likely, on a national scale, was secondary. However, in the future, due to the reduction in the absolute number of unemployed, the importance of such programs, which previously seemed not very large-scale, will grow.

Anastasia Manuylova