Macroeconomics

The Russian labour market is gradually cooling, but high unemployment does not threaten it. The main challenge for the economy is not so much labour shortages as a lack of highly qualified specialists, analyzed the participants of the Financial Congress.

Is it possible to ‘buy’ economic growth with high inflation, how demand ‘accumulated’ over years, what investments increase productivity, and where forecasters make a mistake: abstracts from the Financial Congress session dedicated to economic growth.

Why should we expect a slowdown of the Russian economy, what traps has it fallen into, what will help curb inflation, and what are the fiscal policy risks? These issues were discussed by economists at the Financial Congress of the Bank of Russia.

The macroeconomic situation is the overall performance of the country’s regional economies. Experts at the Bank of Russia’s Financial Congress assessed which regions are benefiting and which are losing out as a result of the ongoing transformation and structural changes.

There is not a single industry in Russia in which the overhang of job vacancies is not rising. Although the renewed growth of real wages will reduce this overhang, the labour shortage may persist for many years, according to Rostislav Kapeliushnikov, a labour market expert.

International sanctions have accelerated the transformation of the labour market which started during the pandemic. The market has moved from limited demand to limited supply, and this situation will persist for a long time, labor market expert Rostislav Kapeliushnikov says.

One in five of Russian professionals with higher education and permanent employment are impoverished or low-income. According to the HSE, poverty among professionals, which seemed to be a thing of the past, is now returning, and the crisis may exacerbate it.

The index, developed by the Bank of Russia on the basis of surveys of enterprises, enables real-time assessment of the Russian economy and its sectors. It displays a high correlation with GDP, coming out in advance of it in terms of the timing of the publication of statistics.  

International sanctions have sparked a fundamental transformation in the Russian labour market, which may result in large-scale underutilisation of accrued human capital, notes Rostislav Kapeliushnikov, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Russian businesses have faced foreign counterparts’ refusal to continue cooperation, suspension of imported components and the rising cost of logistics. Companies are looking for alternative production and logistics chains, the Bank of  Russia survey finds.