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- Freeze frame: how business adaptation to the shortage of workers will change the labor market
Freeze frame: how business adaptation to the shortage of workers will change the labor market
The shortage of personnel in Russia is still assessed as "unprecedented," but business seems to have begun to adapt to the new conditions. The share of companies that regularly experience difficulties due to staff shortages has almost halved over the year, dropping from 61% to 35%. Enterprises increase efficiency through retraining of existing employees, outsourcing and automation. What will happen to the labor market in view of these trends is in the Izvestia article.
From crisis to growth point
In recent years, Russian business has faced a number of serious challenges. In addition to external factors, an internal problem exerts significant pressure on companies — a shortage of employees. The authorities assess the current staff shortage as unprecedented. At the end of April, the chairman of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, noted that there had never been such a shortage of labor in the country before. The head of the regulator called such a situation an abnormal phenomenon for the current economic cycle.
It is expected that the shortage of workers will continue in the future. According to the forecast of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), in the medium term (until 2030) the shortage of personnel may amount to more than 3 million workers.
However, the business is apparently gradually adapting to the existing conditions. According to the April monitoring of enterprises provided by the Central Bank, the assessment of employee availability in the first quarter of 2026 increased slightly (-21.6 points versus -22.8 points in the fourth quarter of last year), approaching the average values of 2023. This, according to the regulator, suggests that the problem of staff shortages is fading into the background. Although it has not completely disappeared, the provision of companies with employees remains at the lowest level since 2022.
In the short term, the shortage of personnel limits the growth rate of the economy. In such conditions, it is more difficult for companies to scale production, launch new projects and maintain the same speed of development, explains Valeria Domanskaya, HR Director of the Open Group trade marketing agency.
— However, in the medium term, the shortage of people is becoming a driver of increased efficiency. Businesses are starting to invest more actively in automation, digitalization of processes, robotics, training and internal mobility of employees," she emphasizes.
The shortage of personnel has already become a driver of technological development, said Alexey Nezhivoy, head of the operational headquarters of the Independent Trade Union Novy Trud. The main constraint in this process is the cost of money.
"With a key rate of 15%, the payback period for most robotics projects exceeds three years, which is unacceptable for an average factory,— the expert warns.
At the same time, the personnel shortage itself does not create a technological breakthrough, but only creates the necessary pressure on business, says Denis Konanchuk, director of the Corporate Training Department at the Skolkovo School of Management. And then everything depends on the quality of management — strong companies use the situation as an excuse to rebuild processes and increase productivity, while weak ones simply begin to reduce costs, increasing the burden on people.
"Therefore, a shortage of personnel can become a driver of productivity growth, but only where a business ceases to solve problems with the number or intensity of work and begins to change its operating model," says the Izvestia interlocutor.
Mature automation and reassembly of processes will be possible only if companies do not compensate for the lack of people by simply increasing the workload on the remaining teams, agrees Daria Fedorova, CEO of the I Understand corporate well-being platform.
— When a business solves a problem with fewer people at the same volume, without revising priorities, roles, and processes, it receives deferred losses: burnout, decreased engagement, mistakes, and a new wave of turnover. Then the shortage of personnel ceases to be just an external constraint and begins to undermine efficiency from the inside," the expert warns.
Hunger is not an aunt
Anyway, Russian business is no longer afraid of a shortage of personnel, having adapted to the new conditions. According to a study by the B1 group of companies, the share of organizations for which the problem of lack of employees remains relevant decreased from 95% to 81% over the year. At the same time, the percentage of those who face constant staff shortages has almost halved (from 61% to 35%).
Only 23% of companies are trying to solve efficiency problems by hiring additional employees. Increasingly, difficulties are being solved by retraining staff (58%) and outsourcing some functions (50%).
Employers see significant potential in the latter. The quality of such services, as a rule, does not cause complaints — 84% of respondents rated them at 4 and 5 on a 5-point scale. At the same time, this approach is considered beneficial — companies' expenses in this area rarely exceed 30% of total expenses.
The growth of the outsourcing market is a natural reaction of a business to a shortage of personnel and the need to remain flexible, says Valeria Domanskaya. At the same time, the quality of processes and services when working with professional outsourcing companies is often not decreasing, but rather increasing.
— Large providers have specialized expertise, built-in processes, a quality control system and the ability to quickly scale resources. For businesses, outsourcing is not only a matter of saving money, but also of sustainability and speed," explains the Izvestia interlocutor.
The main threat, according to her, is the wrong choice of an outsourcing service provider. If a company works with contractors with an opaque business model, poor reputation, or questionable tax practices, this can indeed create risks ranging from data leaks and operational failures to legal and reputational consequences.
Risks to information and operational security are one of the key disadvantages of outsourcing tasks, according to Alexey Nezhivoy. But this problem, in his opinion, is partially eliminated by platformization.
"Digital platforms with ratings, guarantees, and full—cycle automation reduce the likelihood of failures and leaks, although they do not completely eliminate them," the expert notes.
The danger lies not in outsourcing per se, but in poor management, Denis Konanchuk believes. It is under him that blurred responsibility, dependence on the contractor, data leaks and failures in critical processes are observed. Therefore, it is possible to outsource only what the customer is qualified in.
This type of cooperation will work well when the company assigns a clear function with clear responsibilities, SLA (service level agreement), data access rules and quality control, Daria Fedorova is convinced.
"If outsourcing is used as an emergency replacement for missing hands without such a setup, the risks really increase — for quality, for safety, and for the sustainability of processes," she warns.
Upgrade as a basis for survival
Another popular way to increase efficiency in the face of labor shortages is automation of work processes, in particular, involving the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Already, almost half of the respondents (48%) surveyed by B1 perform part of the tasks of the financial and accounting services using AI. 72% of respondents immediately assess the potential of using neural networks as high or very high (only 4% consider working with AI inappropriate in their company's activities).
According to the World Economic Forum, 86% of employers expect that AI and big data will dramatically change business processes. By 2030, up to 30% of working hours may be automated in developed economies. This, according to Alexey Nezhivy, suggests that automation is a key tool in adapting to staff hunger.
However, it will not completely close the withdrawal of people from the industry, the expert is convinced. According to the forecast of the Ministry of Labor, 1.6 million jobs will have to be replaced in industry by 2030. And this is a scale incomparable with the current pace of robotization.
— Therefore, the most effective model is one where technology does not completely replace a person, but enhances his productivity. A single specialist with modern digital tools is able to carry out the amount of work that previously required several employees. If new tools are simply "hung" on top of old processes, without reallocating roles and without training people, this may not reduce, but even increase the workload," points out Valeria Domanskaya.
From the point of view of the well-being of teams, automation is useful not in cases where it allows you to "squeeze more" out of already overloaded people, but when it frees up the resource of employees for more complex and meaningful work, the Izvestia interlocutor clarifies.
— Automation is a key way to stop solving the personnel shortage only by hiring. But the effect appears when the company first reassembles the process, and then implements the technology. Otherwise, we will simply automate inefficiency," Denis Konanchuk emphasizes.
The age of station wagons
As automation of processes is introduced, demand for mass positions may stabilize, and salary growth may slow down, Valeria Domanskaya expects. According to the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, businesses are going to reduce spending on employees in 2026. The share of companies intending to do this has grown to 25% (compared to 12% in the fourth quarter of 2025). And we are talking not only about plans to reduce the cost of hiring staff, but also about possible layoffs.
Salary growth may become more restrained where functions can be standardized, automated or brought outside, Daria Fedorova admits. But in positions where rare competencies, high responsibility, resilience to overload and the ability to work in changes are needed, competition for people will continue.
— The shortage of highly qualified personnel, managers, engineers, and IT specialists is likely to persist, which means that competition for them will remain high. In other words, the market will become more polarized: the value of unique competencies will grow faster than the value of typical functions," Domanskaya predicts.
In any case, the labor market will no longer be the same. Companies are learning to work in more compact teams, and some of the functions in the previous volume may not be restored, the Izvestia interlocutor believes. However, there is no catastrophe in this — technological progress historically does not destroy employment, but changes its structure. There is already a growing demand for specialists in automation, analytics, cybersecurity, change management, customer experience, and digital system operation.
— The main challenge will be the need for rapid adaptation of people and the education system to changing labor market conditions. The ability to retrain, flexibility, and willingness to learn new tools are becoming critical for employees. For business, it means investing in retraining employees and developing new professional skills within teams," the expert emphasizes.
Those who know how to study, work with digital tools, take responsibility for results and solve problems beyond their previous function will be in demand, Denis Konanchuk confirms. In fact, according to him, the market will return not just workers, but people who can strengthen the business.
Therefore, the main challenge now is not to bring people to jobs, but to thoroughly restructure the system of personnel training and social adaptation, says Alexey Nezhivoy. The main obstacles here are inertia of thinking and a lack of skills in working with new technologies.
However, it is equally important in what condition people will return to the labor market, says Fedorova. If a business adapts to a shortage of personnel through a chronic overload of teams, some employees leave the system not because they are no longer needed, but because they are exhausted.
"Therefore, for companies, the question is not only how to learn how to manage with fewer people, but also how not to lose human resources completely — through burnout, emotional exhaustion and hidden turnover,— sums up the Izvestia interlocutor.
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