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Russian Labor Force is Collapsing around the War
Short by 4.8 million workers in 2023: Reuters
Last month, Russia’s Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina highlighted the acute labor shortages and potential threats to economic growth in Russia due to a depleted labor force. Though many expected this to be the case, not many in the western world expected the Russian Central bank to make a public statement.
The problem must have been so acute that it prompted the governor to open the lid on the problems staring the Russian economy. The numbers are slowly starting to trickle into the open ground.
“Russia was short of around 4.8 million workers in 2023 and the problem will remain acute in 2024, the Izvestia newspaper reported on Sunday, citing experts and research from the Russian Academy of Science’s Institute of Economics”.
- Izvestia, citing the author of the research, Nikolai Akhapkin, said that labour shortages had sharply increased in 2022 and 2023.
- It said that drivers and shop workers were in particularly high demand.
- According to official data, cited by the newspaper, the number of vacancies in the total workforce rose to 6.8% by the middle of 2023, up from 5.8% a year earlier.
