Record Staff Shortage: 47% of Russian Industrial Enterprises Lack Workers, Gaidar Institute Survey Shows

The January survey by the laboratory of conjunctural surveys at the Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy (IEP) recorded a historic high of personnel hunger in Russia's industry: 47% of the industrial enterprises polled said they do not have enough staff. That is the worst reading in the history of the polls, which go back to 1996, Forbes reported, citing RBC and Sergey Tsukhlo, head of the IEP laboratory.

A record that keeps climbing

The IEP assesses staffing levels against each enterprise's expected demand for its products once every three months, offering respondents three answer options: staff are "more than enough", "enough" or "not enough". The previous maximum was recorded in July 2023, when 42% of industrial managers reported shortages — a figure later revised to 45% as more questionnaires continued to arrive after publication. By October the indicator had eased to 39%, but January brought a new peak.

The question itself was added to the survey in the mid-1990s, when Russian industry "suffered" from the opposite problem — surplus staff. In April 1996, 37% of enterprises said they had "more than enough" workers; in January 2024 only 2% chose that answer. More than 1,000 industrial enterprises take part in the IEP polls.

• The 2023 annual average for insufficient staffing relative to expected demand was also a record — 37% of enterprises.
• Capacity shortages tied to expected demand affected 15% of plants last year, still below the 2007 record.
• The Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences estimated Russia's 2023 labour deficit at 4.8 million people, warning that the shortfall is holding back economic growth even with stable labour supply.

Wage race and the 2024 outlook

In early November, Bank of Russia governor Elvira Nabiullina called the workforce shortage the main problem of the Russian economy, saying the central bank sees it in its own surveys covering 13,000 companies. On 14 December, Vladimir Putin noted on his direct line that unemployment had fallen to 2.9% — something that "has never happened in Russia's history" — while acknowledging that "the labour market has needs".

Employers have responded with a wage race. The Gaidar Institute's late-2023 survey showed pay rises for both existing and new employees at 47% of enterprises. According to HeadHunter, the average salary in the third quarter of 2023 grew 6.4%, or 5,000 roubles, to 90,500 roubles. Some companies now pay referral bonuses of up to 70,000 roubles for hiring recommended friends; experts polled by Vedomosti noted that "bring a friend" campaigns have long covered up to 30% of hiring in Russian business.

A HeadHunter study conducted for Forbes in November 2023 — surveying 529 chief executives, business owners, HR heads and recruiters across industries — found that 85% of Russian employers expect the personnel deficit to remain a fundamental problem of the labour market in 2024, with large businesses feeling the shortage most acutely.