Russia faces labor shortage, demand for underage workers grows

There is a shortage of workers in all industries, especially in the manufacturing sector, including factories that produce tanks, missiles and other military products. In June, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov reported that defense industry enterprises lacked about 160,000 specialists. And this despite a strong influx of workers from the civilian sector. From the beginning of 2023 to June of this year, 520,000 people were “attracted” to military companies.

Problems of Russia. War and emigration

Why is there such a trend on the Russian market? The answer seems obvious – emigration, war, low birth rates and an aging population.

According to Katarzyna Chawryło from the Centre for Eastern Studies, after 2020, the natural population loss stopped compensating for the positive migration balance. “In terms of the number of births, Russia is in line with the values ​​typical of developed countries, while mortality – especially among men of working age, who are a key resource in terms of the economy – is at a much higher level and corresponds to the values ​​of some African countries,” Chawryło wrote.

Raiffeisen Trapped in Russia: Could Lose Everything

The long-term adherence to the markets of countries under Western sanctions is increasingly expensive for the Austrian banking group. The huge profits earned from the Russian war can quickly turn into increasing losses. The Austrians have just sold their Belarusian branch at a loss of 300 million euros. In Russia, they may lose even more, because the Kremlin has already frozen their huge assets.

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It won’t get any better – Vladimir Putin has recently decided to increase the number of Russian armed forces. The army is to be joined by an additional 180,000 conscripts. The regulations will come into effect in December 2024. Thus, as stated in the decree, the number of people employed in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will be almost 2.39 million, of which 1.5 million will be military personnel.

Many Russian soldiers die in the war. There are no reliable official data. However, as the New York Times recently reported, citing data from Western intelligence, more than a thousand Russians were killed or wounded daily on the Ukrainian front in May alone. Covid had also taken an additional toll earlier. In addition, Russia has been recording negative natural increase for thirty years. This trend has been in place since the 1990s, with the exception of 2013-2015, when government programs were introduced to stimulate fertility. After this short turnaround, the negative trend strengthened, with statistics clearly deteriorating in 2021, 2022 and 2023. During this time, 1.39 million, 1.3 million and 1.26 million children were born, respectively. In 2022, the birth rate was 9 per 1,000 inhabitants and was one of the lowest in the world.