There is a staff shortage in the construction industry

Which specialties earn more than others?

In the spring, the shortage of workers at construction sites for the construction of new residential buildings, warehouses and business centers worsened. Despite the constant increase in wages, developers do not have enough workers. The situation outside the city is even worse. Finding masons and roofers to build a residential building today is almost impossible. The queue for qualified and experienced crews is scheduled for years in advance.

As Natalya Golovanova, head of the SuperJob research center, told MK, the national construction industry began to experience serious difficulties in recruiting personnel even during Covid. At the beginning of the pandemic, construction was stopped en masse in the Russian Federation. The staff, especially workers, found new jobs: they went on shifts, moved to continuous-cycle industrial enterprises that did not stop work during Covid, many migrants left for their homeland.

After the resumption of construction activities, the question of “where to get personnel” has not lost its urgency. Currently, the situation with foreign unskilled labor remains unstable. “85% of construction companies experience a shortage of personnel.” The country is experiencing a demographic decline, due to which the applicant base is “aging.” Men are entrenched in their jobs and are reluctant to change jobs. Including due to the presence of a deferment from mobilization at some enterprises. Companies are forced to raise wages. For example, the increase in the average market salary offers of employers over the year (April 2024 to April 2023) in the construction industry in Moscow amounted to 7.9%,” Golovanova noted.

According to her, over the past 12 months, vacancies in the field of construction, design and operation of real estate in Russia on the labor market have increased by 63%. The number of resumes increased by 35%. Competition for vacancies is 11% lower than a year ago. Now the construction industry is confidently among the top 3 areas with the highest demand for personnel in April 2024 (in descending order of number of vacancies). The first place in terms of the number of vacancies is occupied by industrial production. Retail has the third position.

The analyst drew attention to an interesting trend – the wage gap between Moscow and the regions is decreasing. This is primarily due to the fact that companies, working in conditions of personnel shortage, are making efforts to attract and retain personnel. “Wages are growing especially for skilled workers and drivers/operators of special equipment. However, we must understand that this reduction in the gap in wages between the capital and the regions is not yet on a scale that would give us the opportunity to say that the regions are catching up with Moscow and can compete with it. In terms of wages, only the northern regions of our country can still compete with Moscow: Khanty-Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Magadan,” explained Natalya Golovanova.

According to Rosstat forecasts, an improvement in the demographic situation in the labor market can only be expected by 2030. This means that there will be a staff shortage in the construction industry for a long time. “In the current environment, companies are abandoning unnecessary barriers to hiring. In particular, they have become more open to candidates without work experience and conduct staff training more often. 76% of construction companies welcome university graduates without experience. The most in demand today are young specialists—engineers,” concluded Golovanova.

In order to reduce the severity of the personnel problem in priority sectors of the economy, the government intends to develop secondary vocational education. As part of the national project “Personnel,” it is planned to modernize more than 1 thousand colleges by 2030 and provide access to a common database of more than 4 thousand employers, including those from the construction industry.