Timeless employee: demand for shift medics has increased 2.5 times
The medical sector has demonstrated an explosive increase in demand for shift workers this year, HR services told Izvestia. There is a growing need for such workers in the chemical and mining sectors, as well as in industry and agriculture. However, such a "race" is taking place against the background of a cooling of interest in shift workers in general — the total number of vacancies for them has decreased by 13%. About where such specialists are especially needed and how employers compete for them — in the Izvestia article.
Why did we need shift medics?
The medical sector demonstrated the fastest growth rate in the need for shift workers over the year — by 158%, recruitment services told Izvestia.
So, if in 2024 the number of such vacancies was less than 1.5 thousand, now this number has already reached 3.4 thousand, Izvestia was informed in hh.ru . The median salary offered to shift workers in medical institutions and pharmacies has also increased from 89.9 thousand rubles to 137 thousand.
The sharp increase in demand for medical shift workers was a direct result of the pandemic and the subsequent crisis of the healthcare system in the regions, said Maria Koleda, head of the information department of the independent trade union Novy Trud.
—The authorities and medical institutions of megacities were forced to urgently close staffing holes in overloaded hospitals, offering highly paid shifts to doctors and medical staff from the regions," she said. — In the pharmaceutical and chemical industries, such a need is caused by import substitution and the launch of new production lines, which are often located in industrial clusters far from the centers of attraction of personnel.
Izvestia sent a request to the Ministry of Health with a request to comment on the current need for shift workers. At the time of the release of the material, no response had been received, but Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova raised this issue in May 2024, speaking in the State Duma. She drew attention to the fact that in Russia there are inpatient facilities with a "surplus of medical and secondary medical personnel."
"Therefore, as part of our work, we assume that these doctors can work in shifts while maintaining their jobs in the institutions in which they work," said the Deputy Prime Minister.
She noted that this method is important from the point of view of the development of rural strongholds, where the social infrastructure should be at the same level as in cities.
And in August of the same year, the Minister of Health, Mikhail Murashko, said that by 2030 it was planned to redistribute about 6 thousand employees of medical institutions in this way. This will make it possible to close the shortage not only in the new regions, but also in the Russian countryside.
The shift method in the field of medicine is in demand because it allows at least temporarily solving the problem of unavailability of medical care, Larisa Popovich, director of the Institute of Health Economics at the Higher School of Economics, told Izvestia.
— There are not enough doctors now, and the shift method is a good way to solve the problem of access to medical care where it is not enough. There are various ways of such temporary delivery of doctors to patients, for example, Russian Railways trains," she explained.
To cope with the shortage of medical workers, it is necessary to use various models to solve the problem, and the shift method is just one of them.
"It is impossible to expect that we will ever have a full supply of doctors - there are not enough of them all over the world," she stressed. — And we generally do not have enough qualified specialists in many areas, but, for example, in the field of education, distance learning technologies can be applied. And in medicine, this is not always possible, because some situations require the direct presence of a doctor.
Alexey Starchenko, a medical lawyer, said that shift specialists are usually employed for two months. This often happens, for example, in the autumn-spring period, when the incidence of infectious diseases increases.
Where else are shift workers needed
The growth in the number of vacancies, but not as rapid as in the medical field, was also shown by the chemical industry (+60%, up to 4.2 thousand vacancies) and the extractive sector (+27%, up to 81.3 thousand vacancies), according to the data hh.ru . But in general, they noted, the number of vacancies involving shift work decreased by 13% over the year: from 653 thousand in 2024 to 567 thousand in 2025.
"Despite the general cooling of demand, there are categories of specialists without whom a shift is impossible. The main demand in the shift market is traditionally formed by working professions. The top 5 jobs included handymen, drivers, machinists, welders, and plumbers. Together, they provide almost half of all offers for shift workers," the service's analysts said.
The recruitment service Suprejob also informed Izvestia about a decrease in the number of vacancies by the same 13%.
"This trend is typical for the entire labor market: after an explosive increase in demand for staff in 2024, the number of vacancies has now stabilized," the company's analysts said.
And according to Avito Rabota, in the summer of 2025, the most active growth rates were observed among representatives of industrial and agricultural professions. The demand for drillers, gas cutters and smelters has grown the most. In the field of the agro-industrial complex, employers in the summer of 2025 were more often looking for harvesters and cattle herders.
— The largest dynamics in the number of vacancies for specialists working in shifts was noted in Dagestan, — said Andrey Kucherenkov, director of the category "Working and linear professions" of this recruiting service. — Packers, as well as drivers of special equipment, have become more common in the region. This is largely due to the fact that the region is actively developing as a key logistics hub on the Caspian Sea.
In addition, according to him, demand is observed in the regions of the Far Eastern Federal District.: in the Primorsky Territory, the number of vacancies for shift workers increased by 83%, and in the Sakhalin Region by 63%.
— The dynamics is caused by the large—scale development of infrastructure projects in the subjects of the Far Eastern Federal District, the development of the oil and gas industry, as well as the general strengthening of the economy of the macroregion, - said Andrey Kucherenkov.
According to the data hh.ru The largest number of offers for shift work in 2025 are concentrated in Bashkiria (6% of the total), the Krasnoyarsk Territory (5%), Moscow (5%), the Irkutsk Region (5%) and the Sverdlovsk Region (4%). The fastest growth in demand for specialists willing to work in shifts was recorded in Kalmykia, Tuva and Stavropol Territory.
"This dynamic may be related both to the desire of local employers to attract specialists from other regions against the background of a shortage of qualified personnel, and to the expansion of the search geography by companies that are concentrated in traditionally shift regions. For example, employers in the Urals, Siberia, and the Far East can recruit workers from central Russia on shift — such examples are quite common," the recruiting service noted.
Superjob reported that by the end of August 2025, the most shift vacancies on this resource were placed in Bashkiria, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Moscow, Sverdlovsk and Irkutsk regions. Most often, such workers are sought in the fields of construction, industry, extraction of raw materials, transport and logistics, as well as hospitality.
At the same time, despite the beginning of a decline in employers' interest in shift workers, the market is showing an interesting trend: competition for qualified personnel is intensifying, and salaries continue to rise even amid falling demand, said the research director. hh.ru Maria Ignatova.
— This is most noticeable in professions that require high qualifications, such as welders, turners, machinists. In the coming years, the shift format will be a mainstay for a number of industries, and employers will have to increasingly use not only salary tools, but also additional motivation measures to attract and retain specialists," she said.
Salary remains a key, but not the only incentive for shift workers, said Maria Koleda.
"Therefore, it is necessary to include in collective agreements a whole range of measures, such as an expanded social package with payment for flights and relocations, full—fledged medical insurance, including teleconsultations, as well as compensation for working conditions, taking into account harmfulness, remoteness and work in extreme climatic conditions," she said. — It is equally important to create high—quality infrastructure on site - modern shift settlements with comfortable housing, adequate meals, high-speed Internet and recreation areas.
Among the measures that will eliminate the need for shift workers, the expert also named support programs for families, including compensation for flights of spouses for visits during long shifts. This would not only ensure "normal human conditions" for specialists working in shifts, but also attract truly highly qualified personnel to work in difficult conditions, since the shift method of work is not a temporary phenomenon, but a steady trend.
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