Business shortage: Russia's talent pool has almost halved in five years
The talent pool in Russia is rapidly dwindling: in five years it has decreased from 7 million to 4 million people, that is, almost by half, FinExpertiza estimates. We are talking about people who are not working yet, but are generally ready to enter the labor market, including students and women on maternity leave. In 2025 alone, there were almost half a million fewer such citizens. As a result, there are fewer and fewer potential candidates per vacancy, and the shortage of employees is becoming more noticeable. The reasons are the demographic gap and the influx of personnel into the defense industry. What risks this creates for the economy and what will help change the situation is in the Izvestia article.
Why is the shortage of personnel growing
The personnel reserve in Russia in 2025 decreased to 4.4 million people. This is 9%, or 415 thousand less than a year earlier. Such data was provided by the analytical service of the FinExpertiza audit and consulting network based on statistics from Rosstat and Rostrud (Izvestia has the document).
This reserve includes people who are not currently working, but are ready to enter the labor market. This category is divided into three segments. The first is the unemployed (1.7 million people), who are actively looking for work and are ready to start immediately. The second is the "potential workforce" (551,000): people are on the lookout, but are not ready to go to work right now or allow such an opportunity without active action. The third group is those who want to find a job, but are not taking any steps and are not ready to start working at the moment (2.2 million). In fact, the difference is how close a person is to going to work.
Over the past five years, the number of personnel reserves has almost halved, from 7 million to about 4 million people. At the same time, its share in relation to the number of people employed decreased from 10% in 2021 to 6% in 2025.
At the same time, the number of employees increased from 72 million to almost 75 million. This means that more and more people are involved in the economy, said Elena Trubnikova, President of FinExpertiza. According to her, this is a steady trend: there are fewer and fewer available labor resources.
The situation is affected by several factors at once. First of all, it is demographic: the small generations of the 1990s and early 2000s lead to a decrease in the number of young workers, while the proportion of older people is increasing, explained Natalia Milchakova, a leading analyst at Freedom Finance Global.
Another reason is the high demand for workers. The economy has actually "taken away" free resources due to defense orders, industrial restructuring and logistics, said Anastasia Gorelkina, Chairman of the Board of Directors of HC Siberian Business Union. Students also began to go to work faster, and previously inactive groups, including pensioners and women with children, began to get jobs more often.
At the same time, there are almost no new reserves left, the expert continued. The employment rate of people with disabilities in Russia is still lower than in other countries. Women with young children are less likely to work than their peers without children. However, there are already about 16 million self-employed people, but many of them combine this status with their main job. And the effect of raising the retirement age has largely been exhausted. It is almost impossible to quickly increase the number of employees now, Anastasia Gorelkina emphasized.
The growing demand for workers in recent years has made it possible to involve citizens more widely in the economy: in five years, the number of employed has increased by more than 3 million people, the press service of the Ministry of Labor told the editorial board. Young people are now becoming the main talent pool, with about 1.7 million graduates entering the labor market every year. In this regard, the key task of the education and employment system remains career guidance, training at the request of employers and assistance in finding employment. For this purpose, a project of individual student support has been launched since 2025, the department added.
In which regions there is no shortage of workers
According to the study, on average in the country, 2.6 people from the personnel reserve accounted for one vacancy posted through employment services.
However, the situation varies greatly by region. Ingushetia (282 people), Dagestan (111), North Ossetia (43), Chechnya (33) and the Altai Republic (9) have the most potential applicants for one place.
Such indicators are typical for territories with an agrarian economy and high unemployment, FinExpertiza explained. At the same time, the large number of "reservists" per vacancy does not always reflect the real picture. Some people are formally out of employment, but actually work, for example, in small businesses, family farms, or seasonal part-time jobs.
In other regions, the situation is reversed — there are more vacancies than available candidates. The most noticeable gap was recorded in the Amur region.: there are about 2.3 offers per person. In the Tula region — about two, in the Leningrad and Kirov regions — 1.8 and 1.6, respectively.
There are also regions where supply and demand almost coincide. For example, in the Magadan Region there are about 1.3 vacancies per person, and in the Jewish Autonomous Region — 1 to 1. This indicates that the labor market is close to balance, the study notes.
How the shortage of personnel affects the economy
The shortage of young workers and the growing proportion of the elderly are already becoming a problem for the economy, including due to the growing burden on the budget, said Natalia Milchakova from Freedom Finance Global. According to her, high employment also has a dual effect for businesses: on the one hand, companies manage to close vacancies, on the other, they have to increase staff costs: raise salaries, pay bonuses, expand social security packages and VHI programs. To keep costs down, some employers go into gray schemes — they pay salaries "in envelopes", actively attract the self-employed or outsource functions.
The reduction in the number of able-bodied people requires compensating for the shortage of workers by increasing labor productivity by about 3-4% per year, the World Bank estimated, the expert recalled. One of the solutions may be the introduction of AI. However, this also carries risks, especially for young people, as the initial positions with routine tasks will be the first to be affected.
In the long term, demographics may constrain economic growth. A number of Russian experts have previously noted that due to the aging of the population, the growth rate of GDP until 2040-2045 may not exceed 1.5% per year, Natalia Milchakova recalled.
Wages are already rising in the labor market. In 2024-2025, they increased by 13-20% in deficient professions with 8-10% inflation, said Anastasia Gorelkina, Chairman of the Board of Directors of HC Siberian Business Union. According to the Central Bank, salary growth continued to outpace productivity in March. The average salary by the end of 2025 reached almost 100 thousand rubles.
At the same time, the "salary race" is starting to slow down: the share of enterprises with a shortage of personnel in March 2026 decreased to 51%, and this is at least two years, the expert added. Nevertheless, the structural deficit will remain. According to Rosstat's forecast, employment may decrease by another 1.4 million people in 2026 due to demographic reasons. By 2030, the economy will need to replace about 2 million workers annually. In these conditions, automation and retraining are becoming necessary, Anastasia Gorelkina believes.
The state is already using fertility support measures — maternity capital and family mortgages. However, according to Natalia Milchakova, it is important to create jobs for young people, develop a link between universities and enterprises, strengthen the training of qualified personnel, and encourage the relocation of specialists to regions with a shortage of workers through benefits, mortgage programs and tax breaks.
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