Page 55 - bneIntelliNews monthly country report Russia May 2024

4.5.2 Income dynamics
In April paramedics from several dozen regions have requested the government and the Kremlin increase their salaries. Paramedics’ salaries are often only around 20,000 rubles ($213) per month after taxes, well under the average wage across the country. The paramedics asked that the government increase their salaries by paying out bonuses that, according to them, had already been promised to all health care workers. The State Duma put the issue on the agenda; however, it is not only medical workers who are demanding higher pay from the government. In the Sverdlovsk Region and the Perm Territory, firefighters complained about similarly low salaries over the past few weeks—shortly before Russia’s wildfire season is expected to start. Several regions have reported severe shortages of police officers, and the Interior Ministry claimed to be short by 100,000 personnel in October 2023. This is arguably also because of the meager salaries that federal and regional governments can offer.
Over the past year, inflationary pressure and a labor market made much tighter by overt and covert military mobilisation, demographic pressures, and a defence industrial complex working in overdrive have resulted in a steep growth of salaries, but only in certain sectors. In some industries, salaries grew by more than 20% over the past year (e.g. by more than 25% in the sector of finished metal products and by 21% in the production of electronic equipment, albeit a lack of granular data makes it unclear at what levels). In the army, contract soldiers can now expect to make over 200,000 rubles per month
55 RUSSIA Country Report May 2024 www.intellinews.com