Unemployment in Russia hits eight year high

According to preliminary reports from Russia’s Federal Statistics Service (Rosstat), the country’s number of unemployed people reached 4.6 million in June 2020.

Rosstat is now reporting an unemployment rate of 6.2 percent. According to Interfax, this is the highest level of unemployment the country has seen since March 2012 (when it was 6.5 percent). The unemployment rate was 6.1 percent in May 2020.

Officially, 2.8 million people have registered as unemployed. That’s 30 percent more than in May of this year and nearly four times more than in March, when the coronavirus pandemic began.

According to Rosstat, real disposable incomes in Russia fell 8 percent in the second quarter of 2020. RBK noted that this is the largest drop in this quarterly indicator since 2005.