Member-only story
Russian Central Bank Rings the Alarm Bells
But Kremlin Is Out of Options to Arrest the Labor Slide
Central banks do not operate in a vacuum, and it is incumbent on them to guide the market and the nation. If they are going to pull the rug from under the feet, at least, you expect them to give you a warning before the rug is gone for good. Russia’s Central Bank Governor, Elvira Nabiullina, warned yesterday that Russia’s depleted “labor force is causing acute labor shortages and threatening economic growth”.
Russian Central bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina has sent the clearest signal yet to the Kremlin that they are almost at the end of their runway:
“We now find ourselves in a situation where the economy has practically fully used the available resources, this applies both to workers and production capacities,” Nabiullina told lawmakers in the State Duma.
“Unemployment is 3% and in some regions it is even lower. This means there are practically no workers left in the economy, the situation with personnel is really very acute. For further growth of the Russian economy, increased labour productivity is needed.”
The situation is very acute indeed because there is only so much oil and gas you can pump out of Russia; there is a ceiling beyond which it cannot go. The Western world…
