Hands off: every tenth company plans to reduce staff in the fall
In the fall, every tenth company is going to cut staff, as reported by 12% of participants in the survey of services "Work.<url>" and "SberPodbor" (Izvestia has it). At the end of 2024, only 8% of enterprises had such plans. At the same time, the number of businesses willing to hire new employees has halved. All this is happening against the background of record low unemployment. The main reasons are rising costs, higher taxes, falling demand, and the need to raise salaries for key personnel. At the same time, routine tasks are increasingly being transferred to AI. Massive cuts may affect construction, retail, consulting, mining and mechanical engineering. About which industries, on the contrary, increase employment and which specialists companies hold on to especially tightly — in the Izvestia article.
Who will be cut in 2025
With the start of the business season, 12% of companies plan to reduce staff — 4 percentage points more than at the end of last year. At the same time, the share of enterprises willing to hire new employees has halved: now it is only a quarter, whereas before 2025 there were more than half of them. The majority (63%) intend to keep the current staff, a study of the services "Work.<url>" and "SberPodbor". The editorial board sent a request to the Ministry of Labor.
First of all, companies in the construction sector will begin to cut staff, as demand for housing is declining due to expensive mortgages. In addition, businesses offering consulting and B2B services may resort to this step - they lose orders due to cuts in client budgets, explained the deputy CEO of Rabota.<url>" by Alexander Veterkov.
The cuts will also affect capital—intensive cyclical industries such as mechanical engineering, raw material extraction and individual retail segments, added Yaroslav Kabakov, Director of Strategy at Finam IC.
— At the same time, employees whose work does not bring direct profit are the most vulnerable: non-technical IT specialists, juniors in all fields, marketers and administrative staff. Companies prefer to retain experienced station wagons," says Alexander Veterkov.
Employees with routine tasks, seasonal and contract staff are also at risk of losing their jobs, Yaroslav Kabakov noted. People from the document management department, where processes are already easily automated, are also at risk of layoffs. In industry, these are low-skilled personnel whose work is replaced by machines, added Yulia Kovalenko, Deputy Head of the Higher School of Finance at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics.
At the same time, on the contrary, companies in the field of import substitution and industrial production, focused on government orders, are expanding their staff, Alexander Veterkov shared. Recruitment continues in the military-industrial complex, pharmaceuticals, and cybersecurity, both in socially significant and mission—critical industries.
"At the same time, there is a shortage of personnel in IT, logistics, medicine, education and production, focused on the domestic market, which stimulates recruitment," Yaroslav Kabakov continued.
There is also always a steady demand for labor in the public sector — healthcare, education and law enforcement agencies, said Alexander Safonov, professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation.
In the first half of the year, the greatest demand fell on working and linear specialties — it was supported by infrastructure projects and the growth of the domestic industry, said Roman Gubanov, Director of Development at Avito Rabota. In particular, they began to look for galvanists and blacksmiths 2.5 times more often. The number of vacancies for chefs, cashiers, furniture assemblers and agricultural workers has also doubled.
Why companies are firing people more often
The main reason for the increase in cuts is a drop in consumer demand, explained Alexander Safonov from the Financial University. Another factor is that companies are forced to retain key employees by increasing their salaries by at least the inflation rate, which means that there are no funds left for less important personnel.
Additionally, rising costs, higher taxes and expensive loans are affecting businesses — all of this forces businesses to review budgets and optimize staff, added Yaroslav Kabakov from Finam.
The trend towards staff reduction is also related to the optimization of processes and the introduction of technologies, including AI, says Yulia Kovalenko from the Russian University of Economics. First of all, we are talking about electronic services, both for internal work and for interaction with suppliers and customers.
The cooling in demand for new employees has been noticeable since November 2024, when the number of vacancies decreased in annual terms for the first time. Staff optimization has already begun in large holdings. This is especially true of the IT and digital sectors, where during the post-crisis recovery period they actively hired staff "for the future," recalled Alexander Veterkov from <url>.
According to the expert, the market is currently undergoing a correction phase: companies are getting rid of redundant and inefficient workers, relying on multitaskers and loyal ones who can quickly increase productivity and make a profit.
Earlier, the media reported that Gazprom had decided to massively reduce the staff of the central office in 2025. About 1.6 thousand people, including managers, will fall under it. The same plans were announced by the United Aircraft Corporation (part of Rostec), which plans to lay off about 1.5 thousand managerial staff in Moscow.
— The share of companies willing to make cuts will grow if high costs and weak demand persist. This may weaken consumer activity and employment in the regions, but at the same time accelerate the redistribution of labor and automation," Yaroslav Kabakov predicts.
However, in general, the situation with layoffs does not look critical yet: there is still a shortage of personnel in the market and record low unemployment (2.2% in July), and employees may move from one company to another, Yulia Kovalenko is sure. According to her, the change in the structure of organizations is proceeding systematically, largely due to the introduction of new technologies. Many employers prepared for optimization in advance, so some of the staff worked on fixed-term contracts and were warned about possible changes.
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