Page 70 - RusRPTJul23

Trade to increase the training period for radio engineers. Thirdly, competition in the related IT-sphere, where salaries are on average higher, and there are more benefits. Finally, there is the demographic pit of the 1990s: old workers are leaving, and young ones are not physically present.
Surveys from 2021 suggest 9 in 10 companies reported hiring shortfalls,
with 63% of those respondents saying there were no suitable candidates. That year, small and medium-sized businesses accounted for 28% of all job vacancies. That figure has since risen to 33%, suggesting that state-owned companies and large firms are increasingly outbidding them for the best talent.
Surveys of businesses run by the Bank of Russia for Jan.-March of this year showed the worst results for labor shortages since the default crisis of 1998, with manufacturing, utilities, and transport and logistics the worst hit. Figures vary, but somewhere in the range of 500−700,000 people have emigrated — many of whom had been working in skilled jobs with opportunities to work remotely, such as in IT. That’s roughly 0.8% of the official workforce from last year, a figure inflated by Ukrainians voluntarily or forcibly relocated to Russia and pensioners working past their retirement without reporting their income.
The Ministry of Construction claims that the construction sector is short roughly 250,000 people while Vladimir Koshelev, a member of the Duma’s committee on construction and public utilities, has suggested the shortfall is as large as 5 million. The truth is somewhere in between, but larger figures are intuitively more astute; ministry officials have cited figures as high as 11 million employed by construction activities. In 2021, 12.3% of the labor officially employed in the sector — then a much lower figure of 6.5 million — were migrants. Since the pandemic began, migrant labourers have pivoted towards transport and logistics due to comparable pay and better conditions. One can find a fair number of stories from 2021−2022 of competing developers paying work crews to abandon competitors’ construction sites and work instead on their own projects.
Prior to the exit of 500−700,000 people after the announcement of mobilization, media reports already expressed concern about the worsening shortfalls of graduates skilled in mathematics and engineering — 240,000 students passed the state mathematics exam to enter technical faculties at universities whereas the government had budgeted for 251,000 slots. The number of total students passing math exams, even if not receiving openings in relevant programs, fell 60,000 year-on-year.
70 RUSSIA Country Report July 2023 www.intellinews.com