There are noticeably more Russians with an income of 100 thousand per month: what’s the catch?

Who gets paid the most and why?

The number of Russians with a monthly income of 100 thousand rubles has reached 11 million, which is a third more than in 2021. Today this category of workers is the most dynamically growing. Meanwhile, this apparently benign phenomenon has a downside: against the backdrop of staff shortages and rising inflation, employers are forced to improve salary conditions for people who do not fully meet their professional needs. This creates dangerous imbalances in the labor market.

By April 2023, there were 4.88 million employees of large and medium-sized industrial enterprises with an income of 100 thousand (except for wages, it includes social payments, dividends, interest on deposits). This is 72% more than there were two years ago. Among industries, the highest (45.4%) share of highly paid individuals is observed in the field of mining, followed by finance and insurance (41.3%), as well as information and communications (41.1%), according to the FinExpertiza study. Moreover, by the standards of the most in-demand employees, the level of 100 thousand rubles is considered a very average indicator: 10% of Russians earn about 238 thousand per month, the next 10% group – 109 thousand.

As for the dynamics of real disposable wages, they grew most noticeably in the military-industrial complex – by 20%, and by almost the same amount in the clothing industry. But consumer prices have also increased by the same amount over two years (cumulatively). In principle, today’s 100 thousand rubles are 60 thousand in 2014, taking into account inflation. In the fastest growing sectors of the economy, finding an employee with good experience and skills for a salary of 60 thousand is extremely difficult. Competing for labor in conditions of its extreme shortage, companies have to raise the salary bar – it is this factor that becomes the main competitive advantage in the struggle for the necessary personnel.

At the same time, there is no need to talk about income above 100 thousand as a mass phenomenon. More than half of Russians receive from 19 thousand to 75 thousand rubles a month, that is, the spread of earnings is very wide. The median salary (the indicator of earnings received by the same number of workers: 50% above this level, 50% below) in July 2023 in the country amounted to only 52,269 rubles.

“The situation with wages looks extremely ambiguous,” says Pavel Kudyukin, a member of the Council of the Confederation of Labor of Russia. – On the one hand, it is due to growing inflation: in particular, budgetary injections are making themselves felt in those sectors of the economy that are mainly associated with the military-industrial complex. At the same time, certain groups of highly paid workers suffer financial losses. For example, for civil aviation pilots, a significant part of their earnings depends on flying a certain number of hours, and today it is clearly less than in 2021.”

The key problem remains the shortage of qualified personnel, primarily in industry – both engineers and workers. At the same time, employers for the most part, if they increase the salaries of existing employees, do so on average by no more than 5-10%, and analyze similar steps at other enterprises. In addition, upon hiring, a social package is offered, which may be cut in the future (such complaints from employees have become more frequent today). According to Kudyukin, in many cases, companies are forced to hire a person who is minimally suitable for their profile at a high salary, with the hope of training him to the required qualifications in the workplace.

“There is a whole range of reasons for the growth of hundred-thousand-dollar salaries,” says Sergei Smirnov, leading researcher at INION RAS. – This is, firstly, accelerating inflation, and secondly, a shortage of specialists, as a result of which the dictatorship of the employee is observed in the labor market. Naturally, no one will work for a small salary; people will prefer to go elsewhere. Well, employers are interested not so much in qualified employees, but in those who will provide the end result they need and bring profit to the organization. The special operation also plays a certain competitive role: increasing wages in civilian life becomes a real alternative to the earnings of SVO participants.”

Finally, Smirnov summarizes, literally everything is becoming more expensive in the country – food, utilities, imported cars and maintenance costs, travel on public transport, air tickets, tour packages. The employer is faced with a tough choice: either try to retain a valuable employee by providing him with acceptable salary conditions, or accept an irreparable loss of personnel, with consequences unpredictable for the company.