Advance payment: record salary growth recorded in Russia
Last year's wage growth rate was the highest in the last six years amid increased competition for potential employees. Wage growth will slow down in 2025, but the impact of key factors on the labor market will remain, according to a study by the NKR rating agency. What are the forecasts for this year and in which areas salaries will grow most actively — in the Izvestia article.
The market situation
In the whole country, the median salary offered at the beginning of 2025 increased by 18%, from 65,400 rubles in January–March 2024 to 77,200 rubles in January-March 2025, the director of research told Izvestia. hh.ru Maria Ignatova.
— The most significant increase in the salaries offered was recorded in the fields of insurance (+34%) and strategy, investment, consulting (+25%). Salaries in tourism and catering, for administrative staff, in sales and customer service increased by more than 20%. Only the service personnel have a slight decrease (-3%)," she noted.
However, according to her, the financial possibilities of the business, especially against the background of the high cost of borrowed funds, are exhausted, therefore, in 2025, wage growth will continue, but its pace will slow down significantly. The situation with a shortage of personnel in specific professions will largely determine those who will continue to grow.
— Now these are workers, manufacturing professions — they are the ones who are most likely to have salary growth rates above the market and inflation, while mass personnel in trade, logistics, and the service sector are more likely to have salary growth at or slightly above inflation, — the expert specified.
According to a survey of employers conducted in November–December 2024, 58% of Russian companies raised salaries for their employees last year, Maria Ignatova said. Wages remained unchanged in 33% of companies and decreased in only 6%. Another 3% of respondents found it difficult to answer. It is important that the share of those companies that increased employee salaries is lower in 2024 than in 2023, 58% versus 68%. But the share of those who lowered their salaries increased from 1% to 6%. The share of those companies where wages remained unchanged also increased.
— 63% of the surveyed employers assume that in 2025 their company will see an increase in employee salaries: 42% believe that the increase will be within the official inflation range, 21% — based on market realities and the demands of employees / applicants. Another 26% of employers do not plan to raise salaries in the new year, and 4% allow salary reductions. The remaining 6% found it difficult to answer," the expert emphasized.
Staff shortage
In 2025, average nominal wages are projected to grow by 12-14%, which corresponds to a real growth of 3-6%, according to Dmitry Kulikov, senior director of the ACRA group of sovereign and regional ratings.
"Given the direction of structural changes in the Russian economy, I would expect that relatively faster growth will continue in the manufacturing industry and IT," he told Izvestia.
The main reason for the rapid increase in wages last year was the continuing shortage of labor, which increased by 2024, Viktor Lyashok, senior researcher at the INSAP Center of the IPEI Presidential Academy, explained to Izvestia. From an industry perspective, the main engine has become the defense industry, which is most acutely feeling the shortage of personnel. The economic recovery, including recovery from the recession, played an important role.
— Thus, salaries in the automotive industry and the woodworking industry increased especially rapidly, the industries that suffered the most in 2022-2023. The growth of household incomes contributed to higher salaries in the financial sector and personal services. However, in education, healthcare, public administration, culture and entertainment, salary increases barely outpaced inflation," the expert noted.
At the turn of 2025, according to the expert, signals of reaching a peak shortage of workers began to appear. Some companies could not withstand the salary race, which led to a stabilization of the number of new vacancies or even a decrease. The seasonality of the labor market cannot be ignored either — the unemployment rate traditionally rises in winter, although in recent years this trend has been less pronounced due to an overall decrease in unemployment. Most likely, a gradual stabilization of the labor market is expected in 2025: a slow increase in unemployment and a slowdown in wage increases.
— We expect wage growth to slow down to 10-12% by the end of the year. Leading indicators indicate a cooling of the labor market in a wide range of sectors," Ilya Fedorov, chief economist at BCS World of Investments, told Izvestia.
In general, the labor market in 2025 will be characterized by stability and employers will strive to retain staff rather than compete for new talent, as happened in 2024, Fyodor Sidorov, founder of the school of practical investment, told Izvestia.
After a period of record salary growth, which was caused by intense competition for talent, in 2025 we see a slight slowdown in growth, Olga Bakhtina, an HRD digital agency at RTA, noted in an interview with Izvestia. However, this does not mean a crisis — rather, it is a transition to a more stable and balanced market.
In particular, according to her, salary growth in the marketing and advertising sectors slowed down in 2025, primarily at the junior and middle levels. Although digital specialists are in demand, large businesses are in a wait-and-see attitude and in some cases reduce marketing costs.
Traditionally, salaries in IT remain high, the expert recalled. But there are interesting trends here too. Despite the high demand for AI or machine learning specialists, an oversupply of junior and middle-level specialists is predicted here.
— The average salaries for more experienced specialists remain at the level of 150-300 thousand rubles, depending on the position, and in this case the competition will grow. The situation is different in industry and manufacturing, where wages are rising due to a shortage of skilled workers. And salaries in the financial sector remain traditionally high," she noted.
The press service of the Ministry of Labor reminded Izvestia that salary forecasting is carried out by the Ministry of Economic Development. No response had been received from Minek at the time of publication.
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