The Nizhny Novgorod government expects to increase housing construction volumes to 1.3-1.5 million square meters per year in the coming years. According to the Minister of Construction of the Nizhny Novgorod Region, Valery Anglichaninov, the task has been set to deliver 800,000 square meters of housing per year, and to reach the figure of 1.6 million square meters by 2010.

However, market participants fear that companies will not find specialists to implement these plans. To do this, it is necessary to almost triple the number of qualified engineers, foremen and construction workers, says Anatoly Sekotov, Chairman of the Union of Nizhny Novgorod Builders. According to market participants, there are currently about 150 construction sites in Nizhny, and 2,500 specialists are needed to work on them, not counting general workers. For example, about 200 people are needed to build a standard four-entrance nine-story building, including general workers, says Andrey Baranov, CEO of the construction company Nizhegorodsky Dom i K. In reality, there are slightly more than 1,000 professionals in the construction industry working in the city, adds Marianna Kalashnikova, a specialist at the recruiting company Regional Personnel Center.

Kalashnikova sees the reason for the current shortage of personnel in construction in the lack of demand for professionals in the 1990s. “They left for other professions or went to Moscow,” adds Olga Tyurina, a specialist in the construction direction of the consulting group “Relieb”.

Developers solve the personnel problem in different ways: they increase the workload of employees, turn to recruiting agencies and poach specialists from competitors. In 2007, the number of applications to the Regional Personnel Center for specialists from construction companies increased almost threefold compared to 2006, to 150, says Kalashnikova. The construction company Metallimpress searches for specialists through recruiting agencies, poaches from competitors and invites students from the Nizhny Novgorod State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering (NGASU), says marketer Dmitry Morozov. Baranov from the company Nizhegorodsky Dom i K also poaches specialists from competitors. It is cheaper to invite an experienced specialist from another organization and pay him than to keep low-paid amateurs on the job, whose mistakes are expensive, he believes. The salary of a construction specialist in Nizhny fluctuates between 15,000 and 30,000 rubles, says Baranov (the average salary of a specialist at most Nizhny Novgorod enterprises is about 9,000 rubles).

There are not enough foremen