Who will receive a salary increase under sanctions: Russia’s skills shortage is getting worse

The shortage of SMM specialists in Russia has led to an increase in their salaries by 24% per year. In terms of salary growth, they overtook lawyers, financiers, accountants and doctors. This is evidenced by the research data of the portal hh.ru. Over the past year and a half, the labor market in our country has changed a lot under the influence of geopolitical and economic upheavals, and its transformation continues. What other specialists will be able to count on salary increases before the end of the year and how much will their salaries increase? MK discussed these issues with experts.

The increase in demand for SMM specialists (an abbreviation for Social Media Marketing is an expert in marketing in social networks) experts attribute to the fact that Russian business has become more dynamic and actively promotes its professional services in the media space. Under the influence of this transformation, the salaries of SMM workers increased by almost a quarter over the year: if a year ago employers were ready to pay them 60-100 thousand rubles a month, depending on qualifications, then in the first half of 2023, offers for them were already in the range of 80 thousand to 115 thousand rubles. An account director in advertising agencies or marketing departments of large companies is ready to pay an average of 180-200 thousand rubles. According to the research data, 40.7% of these specialists have just such salaries. And they are not the only lucky ones. “Last year, despite the restructuring of the economy, average wages rose in all types of economic activity,” said Natalia Vashchelyuk, chief analyst at Sovcombank. — One of the highest results was the growth of the average salary in the information and communication sector from 97 thousand to 121 thousand rubles. In industry, transport and trade, the average salary increased by 15%. One of the characteristics of the current period is the very low unemployment rate. In 2023, this figure continued to decline and reached a record 3.2% in May.

According to all indicators, a “candidate market” has now developed, when it is harder to find an employee than a job. “And this is primarily due to demography,” says Marina Mironova, HR Director of Veles Capital Investment Company. For a long time, the leader in terms of wage growth was IT specialists. So, if earlier the average salary growth rate in the financial sector was 6% per year, then for IT specialists it reached 25%. Now the rates have decreased to an average of 15% per year, but they still remain among the growth leaders. Working specialties in production are also in high demand, as this is one of the most growing and developing industries, Mironova emphasized.

Of course, graduates of technical universities can still count on a decent level of remuneration. However, the importance of the criterion of the real quality of knowledge and the availability of practical skills will increase in the evaluation of candidates by employers. “The Russian market lacks IT specialists, top managers, fintech personnel, physicists, engineers, entrepreneurs with start-ups,” Yulia Korchagina-Ozdzhan, founder of the Academy of Business and Strategic Marketing, continues the conversation. “There are few new ideas on the market.” Among all the “techies”, higher wage growth rates should be expected for artificial intelligence (AI) specialists, cloud technology developers, and web designers.

In addition, a slow but still recovery in consumer activity will create a demand for specialists in areas such as service, retail and sales. Of the professions that have become in demand in the last year and a half due to the dramatic transformation of the Russian economy and the “pivot to the East”, one can note representatives of the transport sector. “The salaries of specialists in the field of alternative logistics with knowledge of the specifics of doing business in the countries of the Arab world, India, and China can grow significantly,” predicts Associate Professor of the Department of Corporate Governance and Innovation of the Russian University of Economics. Plekhanova Marina Anokhina.

However, not all professionals will find their place in the brave new world of digitalization. There will be extra people at this celebration of IT life. The active introduction of artificial intelligence will not be a boon for everyone: it is already possible to identify areas where not only should one not count on an increase in salaries, but one should also be wary of the complete disappearance of specialties, and even entire professional areas. “The transition to new technologies will negatively affect the dynamics of wages for workers in the postal services, clerical positions, and the banking sector,” Anokhina warns. “At the same time, large-scale job cuts are also possible in these areas.”

In the Russian market, studies have already been conducted on which specialists can be left without work by neuroscience, the boom of which began last year. So, according to the spring survey of the Zarplata.Ru portal, in the future artificial intelligence will replace accountants, lawyers, designers and marketers. In the West, they went even further and decided to directly ask the latest version of the GPT-4 chatbot about what areas of activity it will take away from people. The resulting list was published by journalist Rowan Chung. According to the GPT-4 chatbot itself, it will be able to replace people in 20 professions, among which there are such as translator, tutor, data entry specialist, support representative, proofreader, marketing research analyst, social media manager, planner meetings, telemarketer, virtual assistant, transcriptionist (he translates audio into text) and reporter. “As for the issue of salary cuts, copywriting services are becoming cheaper due to the primitive and simple approaches that are often offered on the market, plus many texts today can in principle be created using artificial intelligence,” the director points to the already existing market realities. in Marketing Communications at the National Research University Higher School of Economics Anna Podpyatova.

Forecasts of experts about the possible future differed only in relation to specialists from the creative industries. So, according to Natalia Vashchelyuk, there are areas where there is an extremely high level of competition – these are investments, consulting, art, entertainment, management. Only specialists with very high qualifications who have received additional education can count on wage growth here. On the other hand, Podpryatova claims that the Russian market today lacks high-quality content creators and competent influencers (from the English to influence – “influence”, this is the name of opinion leaders who are listened to by a large number of people – N.T.). Any person who can create media products in relevant formats, speak a language understandable to a wide audience, feel the topics and problems that concern people can become such an influencer, the expert explained.

As can be seen from the above estimates, the labor market in Russia is transforming very quickly. This process is also influenced by the accumulated demographic problems and the challenges of the last year and a half – from the imposition of sanctions after the start of a special operation to the active introduction of neural networks. At the same time, true professionals will continue to be in demand and will be able to count on decent wages, that is, it will be difficult to live, but there will be a lot of work for people open to new trends.