- Статьи
- Society
- Surround yourself with work: the number of vacancies in the labor market has exceeded the number of unemployed
Surround yourself with work: the number of vacancies in the labor market has exceeded the number of unemployed
There are more vacancies in the labor market than the unemployed, Izvestia found out. In May–June, the number of vacant places reached 1.8 million against 1.7 million vacant ones, which indicates a shortage of personnel. This situation actually leads to a wage race, but companies cannot raise their employees' wages indefinitely. Against this background, the auditors recommended reducing the planned cost of unemployment benefits in the budget by a third. The average number of registered unemployed in the first half of the year was about 300,000 people per month. What will happen next with the labor market is in the Izvestia article.
How the number of vacancies in the labor market is changing
In 2025, on average, unemployment in Russia remained at a minimum level - by the end of the first half of the year it had dropped to a minimum of 2.2%. In May–June, the number of unemployed amounted to 1.7 million people, according to the report of the Accounting Chamber (JV) on the execution of the federal budget for January–June (Izvestia analyzed it). At the same time, the number of vacancies was fixed at 1.8 million.
As Izvestia wrote, the number of open vacancies in Russian companies decreased by 15% in the first months of 2025. In previous years, the number of available places has only grown over a similar period of time. According to the auditors' calculations, the number of vacancies has started to grow again since March 2025.
The press service of the Ministry of Labor told the editorial board that it is not always correct to directly compare the number of available jobs and the number of unemployed, since the needs of companies and the qualifications or region of residence of citizens who are looking for work may not coincide.
However, the largest number of vacancies is represented in Moscow (210.8 thousand) and the Moscow Region (116.8 thousand), and the smallest is in the Nenets Autonomous Region (0.1 thousand). The highest unemployment rate was recorded at 7.5% on average in the regions of the North Caucasus Federal District, the ministry said.
— In such conditions, the demand for personnel is satisfied not only through the employment of unemployed citizens, but also through the involvement in the economy of those citizens who are called potential labor in the economy. That is, they have not yet started actively looking for work, but under certain circumstances they are ready to start working," the Ministry of Labor explained.
Currently, there is a shortage of personnel in the labor market. It has developed primarily due to demographic processes - the entry of a relatively small generation into the market, says the director of the Research Center for Spatial Analysis and Regional Diagnostics at the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEI) Dmitry Zemlyansky Presidential Academy.
According to the expert, the deficit cannot be covered solely by involving the unemployed in the labor market. The situation should be solved by increasing labor productivity, the flow of labor between sectors, and in some situations by attracting foreign workers, he believes.
— The unemployed have actually ceased to be a resource for reducing the shortage of personnel. This means that the artificial wage race continues, which is not related to productivity growth, but to a shortage of workers," Dmitry Zemlyansky emphasized.
Unemployment benefits in 2025
As long as a person cannot find a job, the state provides him with unemployment benefits. It is paid to those who are looking for a place of employment through the employment center. If there are no suitable vacancies, the person is assigned the status of unemployed and assigned an allowance.
The amount of the benefit depends on the average earnings at the previous place of work, the duration of unemployment and the reason for dismissal. If a person worked under an employment contract, quit within a year before applying to the TSN and worked for at least 26 weeks during that year, then for the first three months he will receive 75% of the average salary (but not more than 15,044 rubles), and for the second three months — 60% (but not more than 5,880).
According to the joint venture's report, 41.6 billion rubles have been allocated for social security payments from the budget this year. This amount was allocated based on the calculation that the average monthly number of unemployed will be at the level of 400 thousand people. Now this figure is about 300 thousand, and the total amount of payments is about 14 billion rubles (a third of the planned expenses), the auditors noted.
In this regard, the Accounting Chamber recommended reducing the planned cost of unemployment benefits from 42 billion rubles to 30 billion. This does not mean that the payout amount will decrease — in this case, we are talking about the limit set in the financial plan.
The money saved can be redistributed to retrain workers and support small businesses — this will help the labor market become more flexible, says Anna Alikova, an independent HR expert.
— The amount of the allowance is fixed by law and is subject to annual indexation — this is provided for by the budget. The amount of funds allocated for the payment is adjusted annually, taking into account the availability and duration of the job search. With low turnover, there are mechanisms for returning funds to the budget and redistributing them to other expenses, which is used if the application for benefits turned out to be less than the forecast parameters, the press service of the Ministry of Labor explained.
What will happen to the labor market
There will still be a shortage of staff in the coming years. Currently, there is an acute shortage of workers in industries such as manufacturing, information technology, agriculture and construction, says Ekaterina Nezhnikova, professor at the Faculty of Economics at the Rudn University. She added: the shortage of workers forces employers to poach or retain employees, increasing remuneration.
— Salaries are growing faster than labor productivity and output of enterprises, and this has a negative impact on the economy. Salary increases force companies to increase prices for consumers, which is why inflation is accelerating in the country," the specialist explained.
"Work.<url> calculated for Izvestia that the leaders in salary offers this year were construction and real estate (97.6 thousand rubles), transport and logistics (93.5 thousand), as well as manufacturing and agro-industry (89.8 thousand). At the same time, employees of the personal services sector (cleaners, nurses), unskilled workers in agriculture and trade had the lowest salaries.
As Ekaterina Nezhnikova noted, the constant indexation of salaries reduces business profits, and an increase in the cost of goods and services does not allow for development in new directions. The reserves of companies are not unlimited, said Lyudmila Ivanova-Shvets, Associate Professor of the Basic Department of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry "Human Resource Management" at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics.
The "salary race" will continue, but it will no longer be as rapid as before. By the end of the year, average salaries will increase to about 100,000 rubles, Izvestia wrote. Moreover, at the beginning of 2026, they will still grow, Lyudmila Ivanova-Shvets continued, since with an increase in the minimum wage from January 1 by 20.7% (more than 27 thousand), salaries will also rise above this level.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
