To ease the shortage: the shortage of personnel in Russia has begun to decline
The shortage of personnel in Russia has weakened after a sharp increase last year — in the third quarter of 2025, it returned to the level of 2023, according to data from the Central Bank (they were studied by Izvestia). The reasons are the exhaustion of resources for companies to further expand their staff and hire against the background of increased costs and high rates, as well as increased productivity and the active introduction of AI. The shortage of employees is most acute in agriculture, housing and communal services, construction and the defense industry. At the same time, businesses are more cautious about reviewing salaries and are increasingly looking for versatile specialists. Whether there are risks to the economy and what kind of unemployment will continue is in the Izvestia article.
Why businesses need fewer and fewer new staff
The indicator of business employee availability in the third quarter of 2025 was minus 25.7 points (calculated as a balance between the share of companies experiencing an excess of employees and those who lack them). It returned to the level of 2023, when unemployment was noticeably higher — 3.2% against the current 2.1%, and the staff shortage was felt less.
The maximum staff shortage was recorded a year ago, when the indicator value dropped to minus 31.9 p. An improvement in the indicator (i.e., a reduction in the negative value) indicates a gradual easing of the shortage of employees. Such data is contained in the November "Monitoring of Enterprises" of the Bank of Russia (the document was studied by Izvestia). The editorial board sent a request to the regulator and the Ministry of Labor.
This year, the Ministry of Energy estimated the labor shortage at 1.5 million people, which is about 1.8% of the working—age population, Natalia Milchakova, a leading analyst at Freedom Finance Global, recalled.
The Russian job market has stabilized: companies have abandoned the practice of hiring all minimally suitable candidates and returned to a more thorough selection, the SuperJob press service confirmed. Over the year, the number of job offers decreased by 15%, while the number of resumes increased by 19%, they said. Nevertheless, even with a decrease in the number of vacancies compared to 2024, a large segment of the labor market remains competitive. This is confirmed not only by record low unemployment, but also by the position of employers.: 78% of them still talk about staff starvation, the company noted.
The labor market experienced severe "overheating" in 2024, which led to a decrease in unemployment to historical lows, Olga Belenkaya, head of the Macroeconomic analysis department at Finam Federal State Enterprise, recalled. However, as economic growth slows down from more than 4% to about 1% per year and output decreases in a number of industries, it is natural to expect a weakening in demand for personnel.
According to HeadHunter, in October the number of vacancies was 30% less than a year earlier, the expert cited the data. This is due to the deterioration of the financial condition of companies against the background of weak demand, high rates and an increase in the tax burden. In such conditions, businesses reduce investments, look more cautiously at the prospects and are less willing to hire new employees, Olga Belenkaya explained.
In addition, companies are optimizing the number of employees by actively introducing AI into production processes, the expert added.
Another reason for the weakening of the personnel shortage may be an increase in labor productivity, said Yulia Dolzhenkova, a professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation. According to her, increasing efficiency reduces personnel costs, so companies tend to reduce or at least not increase staff, and expand the scope of work and services through productivity.
In addition, the business is getting rid of divisions that worked "for the future," which leads to layoffs in these segments. Demand for certain types of products is also decreasing, for example, in the coal and metallurgical industries, the expert added.
In which areas are there still not enough employees
According to the Central Bank's document, the most pronounced shortage of personnel is recorded in agriculture and the water supply sector.
An acute shortage of employees also persists in trade, industry, construction, logistics and among skilled workers, said the Deputy General Director of "Work.<url>" by Alexander Veterkov. At the same time, competition for jobs is growing rapidly among office professionals in IT, HR, and marketing.: There are from 300 to more than 800 responses per vacancy.
— In addition to the sectoral imbalance in the labor market, regional differences are also noticeable. The geography of demand for workers is extremely uneven: most vacancies are concentrated in large agglomerations. At the same time, the unemployment rate varies from 2-3% in economically stable regions to more than 7% in the North Caucasus," the expert added.
The top 3 areas of job growth in the third quarter of 2025 included the production of electrical and optical equipment, the metallurgical industry, as well as the extraction, processing and transportation of oil and gas, said Roman Gubanov, Director of Development at Avito Rabota. These industries are characterized by stable workload, long-term projects, and high demand for production personnel who are difficult to replace promptly. Therefore, even with the general easing of the personnel shortage, the competition for specialists remains the highest here, he added.
There is a particularly acute shortage of skilled workers in the precision engineering, defense, aerospace, instrument and machine tool industries, said Natalia Milchakova from Freedom Finance Global. In regions, especially with salaries below the Russian average, there is a chronic shortage of doctors and schoolteachers.
The shortage is also most noticeable in areas where unique technical expertise is required, where there is a large gap between traditional requirements and new technological challenges, and among the mass workforce, which cannot yet be replaced by robots, said the head of the Career and Skills department hh.ru Marina Dorokhova.
What will happen next to the Russian labor market
At the same time, companies' plans to hire employees by the end of 2025 have become more restrained, according to the Central Bank document. The same applies to salaries: in the fourth quarter, businesses intend to raise salaries by only 0.8%, mainly for certain categories of specialists. At the same time, most employers do not plan to review their salaries at all.
The slowdown in economic growth is likely to continue in the fourth quarter of 2025 (the Central Bank expects GDP dynamics in the range of -0.5% to +0.5% year-on-year) and in early 2026 amid tight monetary policy and an increase in the tax burden, says Olga Belenkaya from Finam. This will help to further reduce the staff shortage and slow down wage growth.
In the future, there will be a noticeable imbalance in the labor market, said Yulia Dolzhenkova from the University of Finance. There is a growing shortage of labor in manufacturing and healthcare, while there is a surplus among white-collar workers.
— In 2026, we expect low unemployment in Russia to remain, although, according to our estimates, it will increase slightly to 2.2–2.3%, — predicts Natalia Milchakova from Freedom Finance Global.
According to her, a moderate reduction in the staff shortage and a slight increase in unemployment is a normal phenomenon that does not pose risks to the labor market and the economy as a whole. This will allow employers to slightly reduce staff costs. At the same time, "universal soldiers" — employees who are able to perform tasks for several specialists at once - will be in special demand.
Nevertheless, if unemployment gets out of control and rises sharply due to the massive introduction of AI or other technologies that allow companies to save on personnel, this will have a bad effect on the economy, Natalia Milchakova added.
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