Russia needs guest workers: the most important problems of the labor market are named

Accountant with shovel

— This year, enterprises in the real sector, with production volumes growing exponentially, are faced with a labor shortage. More than 50% of entrepreneurs report a shortage of personnel. The problem can be solved in two ways – either by increasing labor productivity, including through automation (which is time-consuming and expensive), or by saturating the market with personnel. But since unemployment in the country is at a record low level, it means that all our compatriots are already in positions. Does this mean that we cannot do without migrant workers?

Ostapkovich: Migrant labor is relevant not only for Russia. There is not a single developing or developed country that does not have them. But there is a difference between migrant and migrant. There are workers who, for example, in the United States fill vacancies in Silicon Valley, being scientists, professors, and innovators. In Russia, migrants are predominantly employed in low- or medium-skilled jobs. Despite this, their work is clearly important. Workers from other countries contribute 7–8% of the country’s GDP.

Prong: There is a tense situation on the labor market in Russia. Rosstat says that unemployment in the country is 3%, which actually means that Russians have no free hands. In addition, we must understand that about 10–12% of our population works in the gray zone. But the crisis in the labor market did not start yesterday. Problems with recruiting arose during the coronavirus pandemic. And when the pandemic ended, it turned out that, for example, migrants who worked on construction sites did not want to return to us. As a result, businesses in Russia are preoccupied with finding new workers. Our research and surveys among businessmen show that unemployment in our country is localized. In our labor market, let’s say, there are not enough workers who can be put to work on a machine to produce the necessary parts for defense equipment. But we have plenty of accountants and marketers. Many people are looking for a job in these specialties, but cannot find one. The main task is to retrain employees who cannot find work in those sectors of the economy where there is a demand for labor. And this requires government assistance, we need programs for retraining, retraining and facilitating the movement from those territories where there is unemployment today to those territories where there is a demand for labor.

Smirnov: I would draw attention to the fact that the problem of personnel shortage is not just present in the labor market – it is growing, and its severity is getting worse. Just a couple of months ago, 42% of employers reported that they lacked workers; now it is 54%. Therefore, we cannot do without migrant workers—and quite low-skilled ones at that. I will give Rosstat statistics for 2022. Last year, 662 thousand migrants came to us from the CIS countries. This is mainly from Tajikistan (about 200 thousand people) and 50–60 thousand each from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. Do you think they went to Skolkovo to raise our “silicon valley”? I think no. Meanwhile, the country has a clear shortage, in particular, of housing and communal services workers. The past snowfalls exposed the problem: the paths are not cleared, cars are slipping, and so on and so forth. Who will do this? I very much doubt that a former accountant, marketer or manager will take this job. Professional qualification programs work for a fairly limited contingent – say, for those people who need to hold out for 2-3 years before their pension payment. And for clarity, I would like to make the following comparison: in 2022, about 200 thousand migrants came from Tajikistan to Russia, and less than 600 people from the United States. This is to understand the professional composition of those migrants for whom Russia is now attractive from the point of view of a place of employment.

Robots instead of migrant workers

— What kind of specialists do we want to attract to the country? Are we only interested in highly qualified people: doctors, teachers, engineers? Or is there a demand for general workers too? By the way, according to the results of a study by a recruiting platform, the number of vacancies mentioning the characteristic of multitasking in 2023 soared by 181%…

Ostapkovich: We need everyone: highly skilled, semi-skilled and low-skilled workers. But I would not concentrate on the fact that the personnel shortage needs to be filled only with migrants. Their involvement is certainly necessary and useful. But first of all, Russia needs technological progress. It is necessary to increase the level of knowledge of the population. And to do this, we will have to invest significantly more budget funds in human capital and finance the knowledge economy. And here we have technological failures. There are products that we simply do not know how to make or that we make, but in small quantities. For example, microchips. They are urgently needed by our economy. But we have, relatively speaking, neither specialists for this nor expensive equipment… It seems to me that it is in this direction that we need to work and make technological breakthroughs if we want to rebuild the economy. Such a structural restructuring will take more than one month and more than one year. But this is more important than attracting migrants.

Prong: Still, the main need of our labor market is personnel for monotonous repetitive production, where special multitasking is not needed. But at the same time, the Russian economy cannot move forward without an intellectual scientific elite that is capable of solving complex problems. Another thing is that it is necessary to invest in this area of ​​intellectual work. And as soon as the infusions begin, people capable of solving complex multitasking problems will appear. They exist in our country, we just need to create demand for them. As for automation, I would like to give a simple figure. In Singapore, a leading country in robotization, there are 830 industrial robots per 10 thousand employees. In China, there are about 150 industrial robots per 10 thousand employees. We have 5 industrial robots for 10 thousand employees. And when our government says that Russia will need an additional 2 million employees by 2030, there can be two solutions. The first is to attract migrants. The second is to engage in robotization of production and replace conventional Tajiks with shovels with cleaning machines that will begin to clean the streets of our cities in any weather and their labor productivity will be simply enormous compared to manual labor. But, unfortunately, so far we have not seen any massive investments in increasing labor productivity. Basically, we are talking about stimulating the birth of new people.

Smirnov: The numbers on robotization really look catastrophic. But who will invest in this robotization? Who has enough money for this now? There is no need to expect quick breakthroughs here. And if the situation remains at the same level, then we will still invite workers from other countries to the country. If robotization proceeds at a rapid pace, then migrants may be needed on a smaller scale.

Work for “three kopecks”

— We have decided that labor migrants are needed. But how to attract them? There is talk that Russian employers may be required to provide housing for employees from other countries. And, for example, utility workers in one of the districts issued job advertisements in the languages ​​of the Central Asian former republics of the USSR due to a lack of janitors. Will such ways of attracting labor help?

Ostapkovich: The whole world attracts migrants primarily with stable income and stable exchange rates. But most importantly, it is necessary to socially integrate visitors into Russian life, into our reality. It is necessary for people to feel, if not full-fledged citizens of the country, then at least included in the Russian socio-economic system. Health and education services should be provided to them. Then, perhaps, they will end up living in Russia. Let’s not forget that we not only have a shortage in the labor market, but also a serious demographic hole. Rosstat forecasts indicate that by the end of this century there will be less than 100 million of us. The country has a declining population. Migrants can help here too…

Prong: In fact, the cost of migrant labor is no lower than purely Russian labor. Indeed, people do not want to work “for three kopecks” in heavy industries. The time when migrant labor was cheap is long gone. But let me remind you that there are a number of regions in Russia where unemployment is high. These are, in particular, the republics of the North Caucasus: Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia… When we talk about the flow of migrants from Central Asia, we must understand that this is a dead-end path of development. In order to stimulate the domestic economy, it is necessary to attract people from the North Caucasus regions, for example. Or from the regions of Eastern Siberia, where there are also many unemployed. Yes, if we are talking about the long term, then, of course, we need to work on automation and increasing labor productivity. If we talk about short-term trends, we cannot do without migrants. And therefore, their selection is needed. Let me remind you that at the last meeting of the plenary session of the Russian National Council, Patriarch Kirill spoke about migrants as one of the problems of Russian society. But President Putin, who concluded the plenary session, did not support the anti-migrant theme. In my opinion, this indicates that the Russian government has a fairly sober and rational approach to migration policy and is not ready to engage in outright populism on this basis, because such populism will harm the economy.

— Migrant labor has long ceased to be cheap. There is an opinion that as soon as labor migrants realize that Russia urgently needs them, they will demand even higher wages. Do you agree with this perspective? And is it likely that immigrants will have higher wages than local workers?

Smirnov: I personally do not agree with this prospect, but there is a risk of its implementation, and it is quite high. After all, now in our labor market there is actually a dictate of the employee. Both this dictate and the increase in wages are in no way connected with an increase in labor productivity. Yes, migrants have not worked for “three kopecks” for a long time. They are also claiming the same wages as the Russians. Therefore, it seems to me that this is an inevitability that cannot be avoided. The problem can only be solved by the development of robotization, mechanization, and automation. Otherwise, we get the following: low growth in labor productivity and high wages mean a smaller volume of goods and services provided to the consumer market and, accordingly, an increase in prices for them. This is an acceleration of inflation.

— We found out that our labor market cannot do without migrants. But from which states will they come to us? The human resource of the CIS countries is not endless. But will citizens of India or, say, Bangladesh be interested in working in distant Russia?

Ostapkovich: In principle, you can invite workers from anywhere. Well, yes, we mainly focus on the CIS market. But we must not forget about India and other Asian countries, say, Vietnam. There are also Latin American countries – for example, the life of the Cubans is not at all rich… But again, appropriate incentives, preferences, and laws must be created for these workers. If the authorities create good conditions, then people from Silicon Valley will flock to us and will be happy to work in Skolkovo.