The Izvestia Daily, which cited specialists and studies from the Russian Academy of Science’s Institute of Economics, stated on Sunday that Russia will continue to face a severe labor shortage in 2024, with a shortage of almost 4.8 million workers in 2023.
As Moscow devotes more financial and material resources to the military, Russia’s shrinking workforce is creating severe labor shortages and jeopardizing economic growth, according to Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina’s statement from last month.
Following the start of what the Kremlin refers to as its “special military operation” in Ukraine in February 2022, hundreds of thousands of Russians—including highly skilled IT specialists—left the nation.
Those who fled did so because they were either against the war or afraid of being drafted into the armed forces.
President Vladimir Putin, who earlier this month celebrated a historically low unemployment rate of 2.9%, planned a partial military mobilization of about 300,000 recruits in September 2022, which exacerbated the outflows.
According to Putin, a fresh round of mobilization is not necessary at this time.
Labor shortages had worsened substantially in 2022 and 2023, according to Izvestia, which cited the research’s author, Nikolai Akhapkin. Particularly in high demand, it stated, were drivers and shop employees.
A year earlier, 5.8% of all jobs were unfilled; by mid-2023, that percentage had increased to 6.8%, according to government figures that the publication referenced.
The newspaper quoted the new report as saying, “If we extend the data presented by Rosstat (the official statistics agency) to the entire workforce, the shortage of workers in 2023 will tentatively amount to 4.8 million people.”
It mentioned that Anton Kotyakov, the minister of labor, had stated that the industrial, construction, and transportation industries were particularly affected by a lack of workers, which compelled them to raise wages to draw in more workers.
According to Tatyana Zakharova of the G.V. Plekhanov-named University of Economics in Russia, which was quoted in the newspaper, there will likely be a labor shortage in 2024 since it will be particularly difficult to fill positions for teachers, engineers, doctors, and other professions.
She listed “the migration of the population” and unfavorable demographics as contributing factors to the workforce shortages.
