Shattered by reality: Russians have slowed down in their salary expectations
In 2025, for the first time in several years, employers' salary offers and job seekers' expectations were almost equal, recruitment companies told Izvestia. This happened, among other things, because the growth rate of salary expectations decreased. According to Avito Jobs, candidates want an average of 84.4 thousand rubles per month, and employers are ready to offer them 82.9 thousand. And according to the data hh.ru these are 75.9 thousand and 75.5 thousand, respectively. Among the industries where there is no difference between expectation and reality are the hotel and restaurant business and the construction industry. But in the fields of investment, marketing, medicine and retail, it still persists.
What is the difference between a salary offer and an expectation?
The average salary offer from Russian employers in the summer of 2025 was 82.9 thousand rubles, and the salary expectations of applicants were 84.4 thousand, Avito Jobs analysts calculated.
Salary expectations are currently growing the slowest in construction and telecommunications, and the fastest in finance and publishing.
The trend was confirmed by the service's analysts. hh.ru .
"In June 2025, salary expectations and offers were almost equal: the median salary offered was 75.5 thousand rubles, and the expected income was 75.9 thousand rubles," said the research director. hh.ru Maria Ignatova.
This year, expectations and offers completely coincided in the field of tourism and the hotel business — 60 thousand rubles, as well as in construction and real estate — the difference is only 338 rubles. But in the field of strategies and investments, specialists want to receive 160 thousand rubles, which is 34.4 thousand more than companies are willing to pay.
However, last year, a situation was periodically recorded when salary expectations could be even less than the median salary. This is due, in particular, to the "overheating of the market" during the period of acute shortage of personnel.
Within 10 thousand rubles, the difference between offers and expectations is now in marketing, advertising and PR, medicine and pharmaceuticals, insurance, retail, mass media, sports clubs, raw material extraction enterprises, among administrative, maintenance and working personnel. For example, it amounts to 9 thousand rubles in the field of higher and middle management.
The labor market is showing signs of stabilization and balance, says Roman Gubanov, Director of Development at Avito Rabota.
"This indicates the formation of a more predictable and stable dynamics," he said. — The largest increase in job seekers' expectations was recorded in the banking and financial sectors — by 24%. On average, applicants in this field would like to earn 73.5 thousand per month with full-time employment.
This situation is a clear shift towards more sober expectations of applicants, says Alexei Govyrin, a member of the State Duma Committee on Small and Medium—sized Enterprises from the United Russia faction.
"This trend is explained by the fact that by the middle of 2025, the ratio of supply and demand in the labor market had changed: the number of resumes posted was significantly higher than the number of open vacancies," he said. — This is especially noticeable in the areas of administrative staff, marketing, PR, office logistics, as well as in the segment of novice specialists. Last year, the market was in a state of overheating: employers faced an acute shortage of labor and had to compete for candidates not only through salaries, but also through additional bonuses, flexible employment formats and accelerated hiring procedures.
Today, the deputy said, the previous race for personnel has stopped.
— The salary increase, in fact, has already been won back: those who were going to increase their incomes did it back in late 2023 or early 2024, — he said. — In the current conditions, the employer dictates the rules, especially where there is no structural shortage of qualified specialists. The expectations of applicants have adapted to the new realities: This is both a reaction to market signals and the result of a long period without receiving offers corresponding to the previous level of ambition.
Why did the expectations and suggestions match
The narrowing of the gap between candidates' expectations and offers from companies is associated with a gradual cooling of the market, a decrease in the number of vacancies at virtually all levels: there is still a shortage of line staff, and there are not many positions for top managers now, said Yulia Zabazarnykh, partner at Kontakt InterSearch.
— Therefore, after not seeing a response to their requests for several months, candidates adjust their expectations. On the other hand, many companies collect analytics of the average market income level in order to attract the best candidates, and try to "stay in the market" by changing motivation systems, she said.
Natalia Kretova, a career consultant, also talks about the cooling of the market.
"Employers have stopped joining the wage race by making checks on employees who announce their retirement," she said. — Yes, every company has a so—called gold reserve - employees who would not like to lose, but these are 3-5 people, usually top managers who have options, and they are not interested in changing an awl for soap.
In relation to other employees, the phrase "we don't have any irreplaceable people" has become more confident than last year.
"Since there are objectively fewer middle— and higher—level vacancies on the labor market, and there are no fewer applicants, it makes no sense for employees to play with fire, provoking employers to unplanned wage increases," Natalia Kretova believes. — Moreover, recently many employers have been carrying out planned salary indexation, thereby adjusting its size in accordance with the level of consumer prices.
The alignment of average job seekers' expectations and job market offers is more related to higher salaries in order to attract and retain staff in conditions of personnel shortages, SuperJob service experts also believe.
"In most areas of activity with a high demand for personnel, salary offers for the year (in nominal terms) increased faster than inflation," the company noted. "Construction engineers are in the first place in terms of growth rates, and HR specialists are in the second place."
They noted that not only salary offers for candidates are growing, but also salaries of employees.
"This is one of the most important tools for staff retention: Today, one in eight Russians is confident that if they are fired, a new employee will cost the company more," SuperJob noted, referring to its own research. "Three out of ten organizations are planning to raise or index salaries in the near future."
Reducing the gap between job seekers' salary expectations and real offers on the labor market in 2025 is a positive signal reflecting the gradual stabilization of the economy and the effective implementation of state employment policy, said Valery Tumin, a member of the expert council on the development of the digital economy under the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy.
"A realistic level of expectations is an indicator that the labor market has become more transparent," he said. — Applicants are better able to navigate in real conditions, understand which salaries correspond to their qualifications and experience. This was facilitated by the development of digital platforms, including government services that provide access to reliable information about vacancies and salary ranges.
The recovery of business activity in a number of key industries also played an important role, the expert believes.
— Government measures to support domestic demand, localize production and stimulate employment have led to the formation of a stable pool of salary proposals, which applicants have begun to focus on as an objective benchmark. This is especially noticeable in industry, logistics and the IT sector, where there is a balance between the demand for specialists and working conditions," said Valery Tumin.
In addition, according to him, staff mobility has increased significantly over the past year. Many applicants have begun to invest more actively in professional development and retraining, often using government retraining programs. This allowed them to apply for positions with more clearly defined requirements and, consequently, salaries appropriate to the market.
But the personnel shortage is still at the top of the barriers to business growth in 2025, Avito Rabota noted.
"The resource of unemployed and seeking Russians is almost exhausted: in the first quarter of 2025, unemployment was 2.3%, and most of the able—bodied population is already involved in the economy," they recalled. "And although the situation for Russian business has stopped deteriorating, starting from the second half of 2024, we are still at a historic personnel minimum."
Against this background, the recruiting company noted, in the second quarter of 2025, employers began to include flexible schedules in their offers more often and post vacancies marked "without experience" than in the same period of 2024.
At the same time, the activity of applicants has also increased.
"We assume that this is primarily not a real need for a job change, but a change in the approach of applicants to hiring: sometimes candidates are interested in how much they could earn and what conditions they can expect without resigning from their current position, and are in a passive search without a real need," they noted. in Avito Rabota.
According to analysts, this is also evidenced by the turnover in the Russian market in macro indicators: the total number of departures and arrivals is consistently higher than five years ago.
But Alexey Karpunin, Director of Information Technology and founder of the IPWK Academy of IT Management, believes that the situation is not a "healthy alignment", but a "temporary shaky pause."
— Everyone just froze. Someone is waiting for a rate cut or other macroeconomic easing so that they can start hiring again. Some expect new waves of cuts. Because they're still coming," he said.
In addition, in his opinion, the applicants "quietly dropped their ambitions." For example, there are fewer vacancies in the IT industry - competition is growing from below, as new, newly graduated specialists are constantly entering the market. As a result, the expert noted, "the market is moving towards the employer, not the applicant."
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