Personnel reserve from prisoners and disabled people: Professor Safonov called a solution to the labor market problem

The talent pool in Russia has dropped to its lowest level since 2005. This is evidenced by a recent study by FinExpertiza. According to her data, there is now only one applicant’s resume for every 4 vacancies. Is there a way out of the situation of personnel shortage in the country? According to labor market experts, our personnel potential is very significant, however, bosses do not want to get involved with such “personnel”. We are talking about prisoners and disabled people.

As calculated by the analytical service FinExpertiza, by the end of 2023, the personnel reserve of citizens not engaged in labor activity, but actively looking for work, had decreased to a record minimum: the number of unemployed Russians relative to the number of open vacancies decreased to 1 to 4. What does this mean?

Let us recall that the average annual unemployment rate in Russia at the end of 2023 was 3.2%, which is the lowest figure since the beginning of observation (1992), said Dmitry Platygin, General Director of the All-Russian Research Institute of Labor. But there is also a problem of shortage of personnel, and it is growing.

At the same time, human resources departments of companies have known for a long time about the shortage of workers in the period after 2020. The reason is the demographic failure of the 1990s, when the country’s birth rate sharply decreased. That is, objectively in Russia there is now less working population aged 20-30 years than before. The next factor is that the millennial generation (born in the early 2000s) often prefers to earn money from freelancing in the technology field, and they do not consider employment in an office or production. The third reason for the staff shortage is the outflow of migrants, which began during the pandemic and intensified in the past two years against the backdrop of sanctions and the devaluation of the ruble (salaries in the Russian Federation have become less attractive for them). We should also not forget about the relocants who left the country in the period 2022-2023.

“The most acute problems with the shortage of workers are in the field of construction, housing and communal services, retail, catering and logistics (where migrants were often employed), as well as in the agro-industrial complex (due to the lack of prestige of the industry) and in production (insufficiently trained professional personnel to work in plants and factories), notes managing partner of B&C Agency Ivan Samoilenko. “In some sectors, the shortage of line personnel (salespeople, cashiers, drivers, loaders, janitors, builders) is 30-50%, as the relevant departments have repeatedly stated.”

At the same time, according to the expert, the IT sector is in greatest demand among applicants, where the acute shortage of personnel is compensated by a strong increase in salaries, as well as the banking sector, e-commerce, and consulting.

According to Alexander Safonov, a professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, in science there is no such thing as a “personnel reserve”, which is used in the FinExpertiza study. Meanwhile, there is a definition – “potential labor force”. These are workers who are not looking for jobs. These include the unemployed, women with children, prisoners, students and the disabled. They could potentially work, but they don’t.

“If we talk about “potential labor force,” then Russia has it. These workers are presented in two complex categories, with which employers do not really want to deal, continues MK’s interlocutor. – The number one human resource potential consists of people with disabilities. Today, about 1.5 million people from this category express a desire to return to work, and the total personnel potential is 2 million people.”

Safonov emphasized that the lack of indexation of pensions for working disabled people and the reluctance of employers to hire such personnel are washing employees out of the market. Yes, there are employers with quotas who are required to hire people with disabilities. But this doesn’t happen. Quotas are sold to intermediaries who accommodate such people (sometimes only on paper). This problem is the main challenge from the point of view of using human resources.

“The second direction is the use of prison labor. About 160-170 thousand people can be removed from there. But no one wants to get involved with them, in particular, because of the conditions set by the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN). The FSIN needs mass participation. This means we will have to take at least 100 people at once and build a correctional center for them. At the same time, the employer’s costs for maintaining this center alone will amount to about 30 million rubles per year. Why does an employer need a hundred people at once? Plus you need to get the consent of the prisoners. But even there there are few people willing to work in factories,” says the expert.

It turns out that the personnel potential is there and it is very significant, but in order to use it, the entire system of attracting personnel will have to be changed. The employer will either start working with those candidates with whom he does not want to work now, or will try to attract foreigners, which is unlikely.

“An alternative option to attract job seekers is to increase wages. But then employers will have to reduce unreasonably high salaries for management. It seems that there are few people willing to take such a step. There are no cheap and simple solutions left for the labor market,” concludes Alexander Safonov.