Labor pains: the share of young people in industry has dropped to 12%
The share of employees under the age of 30 in the manufacturing industry decreased from 22% to 12%. Such data for the last ten years is provided in a study by the consulting company Yakov and Partners. However, the Ministry of Labor noted that over the past year this indicator has started to grow. According to experts, by 2029, the industry may need about 3 million employees and 1.4 million just to replace those retiring. But only 27% of college graduates remain in the profession three years after graduation. Why young people do not seek to enter industry and how realistic it is to ensure the replacement of personnel — in the material of Izvestia.
How many young people are in the industry
The manufacturing industry has the greatest need for employee replacement among all sectors of the economy, according to a report by the consulting company Yakov and Partners and the All-Russian Research Institute of Labor. It says that by 2029, the industry will need 1.4 million people just to replace those who retire.
An additional 203,000 people are needed to cover the demand associated with the creation of new jobs in connection with the goals of import substitution and the achievement of technological sovereignty. According to experts, for the effective functioning of the industry, it is also necessary either to increase the average annual growth rate of labor productivity by 5.5 times (from 0.5 to 2.9%), or to attract about 1.5 million more new workers. In this case, the total human resources needs of the industry will reach 3 million people in the next few years.
"In parallel with industry, the growth of personnel demand is expected in other sectors: transportation and storage, hotels and catering, healthcare, construction and education," the authors of the report noted.
This increases competition for labor, and as a result, the manufacturing industry risks losing out due to tight schedules, working conditions, and an unattractive image.
"The trend of increasing the prestige of working professions that has developed in recent years has not yet been converted into an increase in the number of young professionals in production," the document says.
The share of personnel over the age of 60 in the industry increased by 60% (at the end of 2024, there were 829 thousand such employees).
The industry lacks 21% of process control operators in chemical production, 41% of mechanical machine assemblers, 57% of machine operators and adjusters of metalworking machines, 89% of seamstresses and embroiderers.
A small influx of young people
However, the press service of the Ministry of Labor, in response to a request from Izvestia, noted that the study is based on a forecast of staffing requirements (the agency is preparing it on behalf of the president) from 2024.
"In 2025, the share of employees of manufacturing organizations under the age of 30 was already 14%, that is, there is a gradual influx of young professionals into the industry," the Ministry of Labor reported. — The share of employees over the age of 60 is 10.2%."
The agency noted that the average age of an employee in the manufacturing industry reaches 43.3 years, while the average age of employees in the country as a whole is 42.5 years.
According to the forecast of the Ministry of Labor, by 2032 the industry will need 1.7 million people to replace those retiring, as well as to take new jobs.
"This is the highest indicator among all branches of the real sector," the press service noted. "Processing is one of the most personnel—intensive sectors of the economy and the largest employer in the real economy: it employs over 10.6 million people (14.4% of the total number of all employees)."
The ministry noted that the manufacturing industry is one of the most promising career paths for applicants and those who are considering a possible career change.
"The most in—demand specialists in the manufacturing industry are skilled workers and engineers," the Ministry of Labor said.
They recalled that measures are also in force in Russia as part of the national project "Cadres". These are individual career support for young people, targeted training, free retraining of adult applicants, subsidizing the hiring of certain categories, as well as measures to increase the prestige of sought-after professions.
At the last St. Petersburg International Labor Forum, Roman Gubanov, Director of Development at Avito Rabota, confirmed that there are fewer young people on the labor market in general - this platform examined data on people aged 20 to 34 years.
— In ten years, this share has decreased by 26%, — said Roman Gubanov. — The trend towards a decrease in its share of the workforce has also been confirmed: if in 2013 it was 60.1%, then in 2024 it will be 54.1%.
He noted that, in general, young people are actively entering the labor market, but they often do not work in their profession — they are looking for work as a service person in catering, retail, sales specialists, support services, finance and logistics.
"Therefore, we are forced to approach interaction with this category of the population more closely in order to speak the same language with them and fulfill all hiring needs, choosing those tools that would allow us to retain the younger generation in the company," the expert said. — We hear more and more often that the working staff is getting old, and we have to think about how to involve the younger generation, make these professions popular and in demand again.
In the meantime, according to Avito Rabota, employers are expanding the number of vacancies for which they agree to hire employees without experience, as well as to attract older people who are ready to retrain at the workplace.
Why aren't young people enough
Young professionals are choosing easier and more flexible types of employment — in trade, logistics, services, as well as in prestigious segments such as IT and finance, according to a study by Yakov and Partners and the All-Russian Research Institute of Labor.
"Against this background, production is associated with hard physical labor in difficult conditions, a strict work schedule and less attractive conditions in general, losing competitiveness," it says.
The total number of graduates in engineering and technical specialties in Russia in 2024 exceeded 386 thousand. But those who have received an industrial specialty do not stay in the industry. For example, in mechanical engineering, "three years after graduation, only 27-28% continue to work in manufacturing," analysts say.
Moreover, even at this stage of their career, those who remain earn less than in seven other industries — the median salary in the manufacturing industry is 86,333 rubles.
If the attractiveness of working in industry is not systematically increased, the industry will lose even those few young professionals who are initially focused on an industrial career, and then it will become almost impossible to solve the problem of personnel reproduction, analysts warn.
According to a number of companies that participated in the study, education in universities and colleges is in isolation from real business: the set of competencies acquired by students does not meet market demands. The Professionalism program helps to bring college education closer to the needs of employers, individual universities cooperate quite effectively with employers, but changes do not occur instantly and there is inertia in the educational system.
The decline in the share of young people in industry is also explained by demographic factors, said Viktor Lyashok, senior researcher at the Center for Psychological and Economic Research at the Presidential Academy (RANEPA).
— The generation of current 20-30-year-olds is relatively small, whereas a larger cohort born in the 1960s, during the Soviet demographic boom, is retiring. Over the next ten years, the situation will gradually level out, but we cannot expect a fundamental reversal of the trend," he said.
At the same time, the expert believes that the manufacturing industry as a whole remains attractive to young professionals, including due to rising wages.
Will automation help
The decrease in the proportion of young employees and the simultaneous increase in the number of 60+ employees is not just a demographic trend, but a structural shift in the labor market, Tatiana Matvienko, an operational efficiency expert and founder of Claritus Consulting, told Izvestia.
"Under these conditions, it can be expected that companies that are unable to replace manual labor with technological solutions will lose productivity and face rising costs," she said. — Such a shift inevitably affects the management logic of the business.
Thus, the focus is shifting towards operational efficiency and manageability of processes based on technology and automation.
Industry leaders are already starting to establish deserted production facilities when implementing new projects and are actively experimenting with automation, the study also notes. For example, one of the leaders of the manufacturing industry over the past 17 years has reduced the staffing capacity of its business by 80 thousand people, while increasing output 6.5 times. During this massive transformation, the penetration rate of digital tools has reached 94% of processes.
However, not all market participants are ready for such a development.
"Now everyone is saying: let's do automation, it will increase the productivity of the project. Let's. Do you know how much it costs to invest in this automation? That's billions of rubles. We can build a new plant and design it so that there are no people there," said the HR director of a large metallurgical enterprise.
"At the moment, there is a lot of talk about automation, digitalization, and digital twins. All this costs a lot of money, and if you recalculate all this into monetary cases, all this will be unprofitable compared to human work," said the HR director of a large chemical enterprise.
And the HR director of an industrial enterprise noted that his company implements automation projects only if the payback period is a year or a year and a half.
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