Even in the context of the economic crisis , the unemployment rate in Russia is still not as high as it was once forecasted. However, the labor market is facing a number of structural weaknesses, such as rising youth unemployment.
Statistics
The unemployment rate in Russia is scary, although these figures have not yet exceeded the critical norm. Statistics were received by Rosstat in August 2017. According to official figures, the number of working population was 78 million, and the number of unemployed people was at least 3.8 million. Compared to previous years, the overall figure fell below 5%. But let's find out how critical these are and when it's time to start to sound the alarm.
Unemployment in a country is measured as follows: it uses an index calculated by dividing the number of unemployed by the total labor force in the country, and then this indicator is multiplied by 100. As a rule, the workforce consists of people who are young enough and suitable for any job, including physical.
The unemployment rate in Russia is an important economic factor. However, disputes about what leads to this problem are ongoing. But economists are sure of one thing - unemployment, as a rule, appears in bad times for the country, that is, during a recession (a decrease or slowdown in economic growth) and a crisis.
Problem in the country
As for other important economic factors, inflation in Russia has been falling for several years, while real (adjusted for inflation) gross domestic product is still growing after a sharp decline in 2009.
As in most other countries, the Russian economy is mainly focused on services and various industries, while the agricultural sector plays practically no role, especially when it comes to the new generation of gross domestic product. Consequently, the vast majority of the workforce is concentrated in the two sectors indicated above. But Russia is still among the top wheat exporters worldwide, ranking third after the United States and Canada.
Comparison with previous years: rise and fall
Unemployment in Russia is a problem that stretches from year to year. If we take the statistics for the last 10 years, then the country has not yet been chosen from the limit of 5%. At the same time, the crisis moment came in 2009, when the index was 8.3%. For a more accurate presentation, we suggest you study the table, which shows a brief statistics of unemployment in Russia by year:
2008 | 2009 | 20010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 |
6.2% | 8.3% | 7.3% | 6.5% | 5.5% | 5.5% | 5.5% | 5.6% | 5.5% | 5.3% |
Terminology
An unemployed person is someone who does not work, and, as a rule, is actively searching for a job. When calculating the index, people who are retired are not taken into account, those who have disabilities, are on maternity leave or study in any institution, have not reached a certain age.
Cause
Unemployment in Russia should not surprise anyone, because almost all countries in the world are faced with this problem. For example, in Turkmenistan the index reaches 70%, in Nepal - 46%, in Kenya - 42%, even in Greece and Spain this indicator varies from 27% to 28%. Let's find out the main causes of unemployment in Russia:
- People leave their previous jobs to find a higher paying, more convenient job.
- People have been fired and are now unable to recover.
- The company has reduced labor. This may be due to the fact that the country's economic growth is slowing down; most goods or services are not in demand.
- They went on maternity leave, entered the educational institution, and did not reach working age.
- The position of the person was distributed to other employees.
- Too many people. This factor plays a large role, especially in small towns where there is much more demand than supply.
- Low wages, difficult working conditions.
- Scientific and technological progress, where human power is replaced by robots, machines.
- There are not enough jobs, both in individual regions and throughout the country as a whole.
Facts
Between the end of summer and the beginning of autumn 2014, when the economic crisis in Russia was just beginning to develop, oil prices began to fall rapidly, the ruble followed them, and inflation began to rise. It is not surprising that many experts predicted that the Russian population would inevitably face a serious disaster of mass unemployment.
The logic of such forecasts was clear - the country suffered from a severe economic downturn, which had an impact on almost all sectors of the economy. The state clearly did not have enough resources, as in 2008-2009 during the previous financial crisis, to ensure large-scale investments in all areas affected by the crisis.
Today, almost four years after the onset of the crisis, skeptics' forecasts did not materialize. It seemed that under these conditions, the natural reaction of the problem sectors would be layoffs to cut costs and save money. But neither in 2015, nor in 2016, nor in 2017 did this happen. According to statistics, unemployment in Russia has never been such a global problem as in 2009. For all years, almost never did the index exceed a very modest figure of 6%. And (compared with global statistics) this indicator is commendable.
We give an example. The unemployment rate reached almost 10% in the USA (during the peak of the crisis of 2008-2009 ). The average unemployment rate in the EU is currently below 10%, which is considered a success since almost 8 years ago the index exceeded 12%. At the height of the economic crisis in countries such as Spain, Greece, Italy, this figure reached 40%. But there is still cause for concern. Already today in these countries, approximately one in five people is unemployed. How did Russia manage to avoid such a fate?
What is the difference between Russia
According to Tatyana Maleva, director of the Institute for Social Analysis and Forecasting at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), since the 1990s, Russia has been developing its own labor market model, which differs from the western one.
While in most countries of the world, companies are reducing production and headcount during times of economic turmoil, in Russia, fearing aggravation of social tension, all market participants behave completely differently. Instead of firing ineffective workers, employers prefer to lower wages. In addition, the Russian labor market is resorting to a system of hidden unemployment, in which workers are transferred to a shorter week, sent on unpaid leave, or their hours and rates of production are reduced.
Workers are happy to accept this system, and all because of the small number of real alternatives - the risk of not finding a new job scares people, even in large megacities. The state is also quite satisfied with such behavior of employers and workers, as this ensures that there will never be a large influx of people seeking unemployment benefits in Russia. It can undermine an already weakened budget.
The size of unemployment benefits in Russia
To date, the minimum monthly unemployment benefit is 850 rubles (approximately $ 15 at current exchange rates) for people looking for work for the first time, the first year after being fired for violation of labor discipline, and the maximum is 4,900 rubles (about $ 85). Obviously, such small amounts are not enough for survival, so they do not provoke people to register as officially unemployed. There are just over three million such people in Russia today.
One big advantage of such a labor market model that suits everyone is that it makes it possible for society to avoid tensions and political upsurge. However, the main drawback is that as a result, our country has an economy that suffers from sluggish processes. That is, the environment in which everyone has employment guarantees, no one has an incentive to fight for jobs.
Lower salary
Today, the unemployment rate in Russia is 5.3%, which corresponds to approximately 4 million people. At the same time, last year, real wages fell by almost 10%. This is the reason that the country did not experience a sharp increase in unemployment - a decrease in real wages testified to this process.
Employers continue to respond to the crisis in this way. Over the past year, more than 24% of families surveyed confirmed that they have reduced their wages, 19% of their citizens have delayed payment, and 9% have reduced their working hours, they were forced to go on unpaid leave or were laid off.
Temporary employment
Since the size of unemployment benefits in Russia in 2018 remained virtually unchanged, people began to look for part-time or temporary employment, which would bring a little more income than help from the state. At the end of May 2016, according to the Ministry of Labor, this sector of the labor market grew by 18 percent compared to the same period last year. In general, over the past year the number of part-time workers has increased to 41,500, and now has exceeded 300,000. This is not so much for such a large country as Russia, but it is equivalent to the population of a large city.
The most important thing is that the number of temporary workers is growing, a certain trend can be traced here. Yes, employers seek to avoid layoffs, obviously realizing that if this happens at their enterprise, the state will obviously not be happy. Especially when it comes to the election, because then no one is interested in the appearance of centers of social tension on the map of Russia.
At the same time, the economic crisis is not over yet, GDP continues to decline, although not as sharply as in the period from 2014 to 2016. Most businessmen still need to optimize their expenses, including wages. Otherwise, their business simply will not be able to survive. Therefore, decisions are currently being taken providing for the transfer of workers to various forms of underemployment. Thus, Russian business reduces its costs by resorting to this method.
Finally
The main problem of Russia is that our market creates very few new jobs. Its only peculiarity is that it provides a high level of employment and low unemployment due to highly differentiated wages, as well as a significant share of low-paid employment. At the same time, the demand for temporary employment is growing on the labor market, where loaders, laborers, repairmen, drivers, packers, sellers, cleaners and cooks are required.
Summing up, we can say that the Russian labor market was able to respond to the challenges of the economic crisis, using its own model, in which natural disadvantages were turned into temporary advantages. Reducing wages, transferring people to temporary work, reducing working time, intensifying internal labor migration, transferring people to remote work - these processes are nothing more than temporary measures. But they allow many people to stay afloat, having at least some source of income in difficult economic times.