Questionable employment: will unemployment soar in Russia
In February, unemployment in Russia continued to fall. Rosstat data show that the month before last it was 2.15% (compared to 2.18% in January), and excluding seasonal and calendar factors, it was only 2%, which is another historical low. Nevertheless, there is reason to believe that official unemployment statistics do not tell everything, and the situation with the employment of Russians is not cloudless. Izvestia found out who to believe in the description of the labor market and what will happen to unemployment during the year.
The comprehensive picture
The official unemployment figure has always raised some doubts, not only in Russia. But in the Russian Federation, especially, for example, due to the large size of the so—called garage economy. At the same time, she showed the trends correctly. And the process of reducing unemployment that has been observed in recent years has been confirmed by many other indirect data. By the beginning of 2026, the situation had become less clear.
On the one hand, we see that unemployment statistics as such are struggling with other Rosstat data. The same report shows an increase in wages (by 16.4% in January, which is much higher than the inflation rate), as well as a significant increase in the number of people employed. In February, these figures increased by 1.4% compared to the same month of the previous year. This is a lot, in fact, we can say that about a million more people worked in the country than a year ago.
At the same time, figures from other sources cast doubt on whether Rosstat's picture is comprehensive. The main "but" here is the index hh.ru . The recruitment company demonstrates in its statistics that the ratio of resumes to vacancies increased in March to 11.4 to 1. In February, it was also a decent figure — 9.8 to 1. According to her methodology, the labor shortage is an indicator below four resumes per vacancy, and everything above eight is the employer's market and a shortage of jobs. The only area where the deficit has been really fixed so far is retail trade (there is a ratio of 3.8 to 1).
Hidden adaptation mechanisms
The emerging contradiction between the official unemployment minimums and the data from recruitment platforms is explained by the peculiarities of the accounting methodology and the specifics of the domestic labor market, developed over the past decades.
First of all, it is necessary to separate the concepts of administrative (registered) unemployment and unemployment calculated according to the methodology of the International Labor Organization (ILO). According to Kirill Chernovol, a researcher at the Gaidar Institute's Laboratory for the Analysis of Best International Practices, these indicators may show multidirectional dynamics.
— In February 2026, the total number of unemployed in Russia amounted to 1.6 million people, and officially registered unemployed — 0.3 million. At the same time, total unemployment was 8.4% lower than in February 2025, while "registered" unemployment, on the contrary, was 6.6% higher, the expert explains.
According to him, this fact alone demonstrates that administrative accounting can only partially reflect the real picture.
In addition, the survey methodology used by Rosstat to generate employment data has its own characteristics. A person is considered to be employed if they performed paid work for at least one hour during the study week. In the context of the development of the platform economy (courier services, taxis, marketplaces), a significant part of people who have lost their permanent jobs are moving to the sector of episodic employment. Statistically, they are no longer unemployed, but their income and job security are declining sharply.
The second important factor is the model of adaptation of enterprises to crisis phenomena, which is traditional for the Russian economy. Unlike in Western markets, where companies resort to mass layoffs when demand drops, domestic businesses prefer to maintain staff by manipulating working hours and the premium part of the payroll.
Record low unemployment may give an overly optimistic assessment in the context of a slowing economy, warns Olga Belenkaya, head of the Macroeconomic Analysis Department at Finam.
— Employers, optimizing staff costs, prefer not to dismiss employees, but to transfer them to part-time employment. According to Rosstat, in the fourth quarter of 2025, 4% of the list of employees of organizations worked part-time. The largest share of such workers was noted in the production of motor vehicles (24.9% of the list number), she emphasizes.
The third factor is demographic and structural in nature. The labor force in Russia is aging, and older employees are statistically less likely to change jobs, which reduces the level of so-called frictional unemployment (which occurs during the transition from one place to another). At the same time, there is a flow of personnel into sectors with historically higher employment stability, including the public sector and the military-industrial complex.
Slow cooling instead of collapse
Based on the available data, it can be assumed that a sharp spike in unemployment should not be expected. The dynamics will be determined by the general macroeconomic background, which is showing signs of slowing down in early 2026.
Statistics from the first months of the year show a decrease in the output of goods and services by basic types of activity. In particular, the turnover of organizations amounted to 96.7% compared to the same period last year, while manufacturing industries showed a decrease to 97.1%. The contraction of production will inevitably lead to a correction of the personnel policy of enterprises.
By the middle to the end of the year, unemployment is more likely to grow slowly rather than sharply. Moreover, according to Kirill Chernovol, it may manifest itself not in mass layoffs, but in a reduction in hiring and a longer job search. This is also indicated by the Bank of Russia, which expects an average unemployment rate of 2.4% this year.
In conditions when the economy is operating in a mode close to full employment, absolute unemployment figures (in the range from 2 to 3%) cease to be an accurate indicator of the health of the economy. The market will adapt through internal efficiency reserves, and not through the "street," says Anton Tabakh, chief economist at Expert RA rating agency.
— The unemployment rate is likely to be close to lows even with the economy hypothermia. It is pointless to look for trends under a microscope in the movement of unemployment from 2 to 2.5 or 3%: both are still full employment. The labor market will adapt to the new conditions through reduced overwork, slower wage indexation, and more optimal use of labor, the expert says.
All this can lead to a structural change in demand, which will simultaneously result in a reduction in the number of high-quality jobs while expanding less qualified positions.
Thus, the record figures of official statistics do not contradict the data of recruiting platforms on the growth of competition for jobs. They describe different sides of the same process: the economy does not throw people out on the street, but the quality of this employment (expressed in the number of hours worked, salary stability and career prospects) begins to decline gradually. The cooling of the labor market has already begun, but it is taking place according to the traditional scenario for Russia — inside corporate balance sheets, and not in queues at labor exchanges. Unless something extraordinary happens, this process will continue in the next few months.
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