Unemployment is left for the fall – Newspaper Kommersant No. 167 (7368) of 09/10/2022

The level of registered unemployment in the Russian Federation at the beginning of September remains record low – the number of officially unemployed now stands at 665,000 people, which does not exceed 0.9% of all employed (the unemployment rate according to the methodology of the International Labor Organization is 3.9%). Also, contrary to some previous forecasts, the number of idle and part-time workers is declining. However, according to experts, in October-December the situation on the labor market may change somewhat for the worse if foreign companies continue to leave Russia.

The Russian labor market continues to demonstrate stability, follows from the data given yesterday at a meeting of the relevant interdepartmental working group by Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova. According to her, from August 15 to September 5, the number of registered unemployed people decreased by 10.4 thousand people and amounted to 664.6 thousand. This is only 0.9% of the total number of employees in the Russian Federation – the figure remains at the same level at which he was in July. Recall that, according to the latest data from Rosstat, in July this year, the unemployment rate according to the ILO methodology (according to it, the unemployed are those who at the time of the study simultaneously needed work, were looking for it and were ready to start it) was also minimal – 3.9 %.

Against the backdrop of stable unemployment rates in the period from August 15 to September 5, the number of part-time workers decreased by 14.5 thousand, to 128 thousand people, as well as idle workers – by 9 thousand, up to 97 thousand people.

Data on the labor market from recruitment services correlate with official figures. Thus, according to the statistics of the Rabota.ru service, in August the activity of employers in terms of posting vacancies increased by 10%, while the activity of applicants, on the contrary, decreased by 6%. According to SuperJob portal analysts, over the past week, the labor market index amounted to 1.01 points, which is slightly higher than the average recruiting activity of companies in the same periods of 2017-2019.

According to SuperJob, the most active employers are those involved in purchasing, supply and manufacturing. According to the results of August, technologists, welders and loaders are among the most demanded specialists. According to Rabota.ru, in August, employers in the trade sector were most often looking for employees – they accounted for almost a quarter of all job offers (24%). Companies from the manufacturing and agricultural industries were also active in the labor market in August, publishing 16% of vacancies. Transport and logistics companies accounted for 14% of all job offers.

It should be noted that specialists do not have a consensus on whether this situation will continue on the Russian labor market during the autumn. The Ministry of Economy previously predicted that by the end of 2022, the unemployment rate in the country could be higher than the current one by almost one percentage point (4.8%). It is possible to expect an increase in the number of people who have lost their jobs, as the head of the department Maxim Reshetnikov said, already from the beginning of this autumn.

On the whole, the CMASF agrees with this forecast, however, according to the leading expert of this center, Igor Polyakov, an increase in the number of laid-offs will be noticeable more likely at the end of the year – if foreign enterprises continue to leave the Russian labor market, and the remaining organizations will reduce production. The situation was assessed in a similar way in the CSR – however, they assumed that even with minor changes in the unemployment rate for the country as a whole, it could rise significantly for individual regions where employment is provided by one or several enterprises.

Anastasia Manuylova