Page 28 - Russia OUTLOOK 2022

that a full-time employee may be paid.
According to the statistics department, the median pay in Russia in 2020 was RUB32,422 ($437). Rosstat calculates the minimum wage at 42% of the median pay.
The following industries had the largest increases in median wages:
Information technology and communications – 13.5%; Finance and insurance – 13.1%;
Trade – 12.9%;
Hotels and catering – 12.8%;
Construction – 12.5%; Extraction of minerals – 10.7%; Agriculture – 10.3%; Manufacturing industries – 10%.
According to the report, the wage bill (businesses’ spending for employee pay) increased by 13.8% year on year in the third quarter of 2021.
Increasing wages is an important plank in Putin’s economic revival plan as falling standards of living are fermenting social unrest and the Kremlin realises that the trend needs to be reversed.
Raising incomes has been a key part of Putin’s long-term strategy. During the boom years in the noughties public sector wages, which connected to half the population, were raised by around 10% a year for nearly a decade as the state realised that the gap between private sector and public sector income needed to be closed. That led to a consumption-driven boom and the economy flourished.
Now the Kremlin is proposing to repeat the trick, which will be driven by massive state investment into infrastructure, which will eat up about a third of the RUB27 trillion national projects programme.
28 RUSSIA Russia OUTLOOK 2022 www.intellinews.com