The labor market will get rid of unnecessary things – Kommersant FM

Technological progress will remove more than 700 thousand Russians from the labor market. Such prospects were outlined by the Ministry of Economic Development in its forecast until 2030, writes RBC. According to the ministry, the demand for personnel will fall in four areas – agriculture, trade, finance and insurance. How do representatives of these industries assess such prospects? And what else might change in the labor market in seven years? Vladimir Rasulov found out.

According to the forecast of the Ministry of Economic Development, by 2030 in Russia the largest number of extra people will be in the agricultural industry – almost 300 thousand people. At first glance, this industry may seem to be one of the most automated: special machines can milk cows and sort vegetables and fruits. And unmanned harvesters are becoming more and more common on domestic fields.

The technology really does eliminate manual labor in some places, admits Oleg Sirota, owner of the Istra Cheese Factory and chairman of the People’s Farmer Association. True, he does not expect a potential decrease in the demand for personnel in the seven-year period, since now, on the contrary, there are not enough people, including for the development of the industry:

“We are introducing robots. A milking robot replaces one or two people, a vegetable picking robot replaces 10 people. But so far these are extremely rare cases. The biggest problem this year is that I have no machine operators. They receive serious money, and there is not enough of it. There are not enough employees for the banal sorting of vegetables. We are supplied with robots, but I do not have roboticists. There is one boy, the second one recently came from the army, I blow away dust from them so that they can tune the machines.”

Another 200 thousand people, according to the Ministry of Economic Development, will become redundant in trade by 2030. Officials predict a halved reduction in demand for the finance and insurance sectors. Many routine operations in this sector of the economy no longer require human intervention. But in some cases it’s impossible to do without a live specialist, says independent financial advisor Natalya Smirnova:

“Something simple can be algorithmized, but not everything. In particular, it is impossible to prescribe, for example, an algorithm for the optimal portfolio structure, based primarily on all infrastructure and sanctions restrictions, currency legislation and, for example, taxation, since these are all changing parameters. A robot can’t handle this.”

However, there are industries where the demand for personnel in the seven-year period, on the contrary, will grow, the Ministry of Economic Development emphasizes. For example, 10 million people worked in manufacturing last year, but another 800 thousand will be needed. In healthcare and transportation – 400 thousand specialists each.

In scientific activities, the need for employees will increase by 300 thousand, and in the field of information technology and communications – by 200 thousand. Such calculations by officials can be called optimistic, because by 2030 the labor market in all areas without exception will be scarce, believes Denis, a partner at FutureToday Kaminsky:

“Of course, we will have technologization of processes in a variety of areas, but by 2030 automation will not compensate for the shortage of people associated with the demographic situation.

In the current conditions of near-zero GDP growth with the reduction in personnel that we have in Russia and the gradual aging of the population, I don’t think that anyone in the labor market will have a problem with work.”

Meanwhile, Russia has hit a record low unemployment rate. According to Rosstat, we are talking about only 3%. In absolute numbers – approximately 0.5 million people. These are those citizens who registered with the employment service in the first half of the year. And labor productivity in the country fell by more than 3.5% last year for the first time since 2009. Despite technological progress.

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Svetlana Belova