Translated material
The unemployed went into the red
Employment authorities have recorded an outflow of available personnel
The head of the Ministry of Health and Social Development, Tatyana Golikova, can safely demonstrate the results of the latest weekly measurement of the unemployment rate in Russia, either in the Kremlin or in the White House. For the first time in recent months, the minister will not have to use such inelegant expressions as “downward trend” to emphasize his generally optimistic assessment of the labor market situation. In the last week of April, departmental monitoring revealed that the level of registered unemployment in the country was not slowing down, but was simply declining. Moreover, by almost the same amount that it has grown weekly since March.The Ministry of Health and Social Development has not seen negative values in relation to unemployment statistics since the fall of last year, when the global financial crisis hit domestic enterprises in a wide wave. According to Ms. Golikova’s department, at the end of 2008, the growth in the number of registered unemployed averaged 4.2% per month. In January and February, the rate of replenishment of the army of those who had lost regular income became critical - monitoring showed a monthly increase of 9%. Officials were even forced to admit errors in forecasting - the estimated annual “ceiling” of 2.2 million official unemployed was exceeded during the first quarter. Since March, the Ministry of Health and Social Development has considered the most optimistic scenario to be one in which by the end of the year no more than 2.8 million people will be registered with employment agencies. This means that when calculated using the methodology of the International Labor Organization, the total number of unemployed Russians will not exceed 10% of the number of citizens of working age.
But since March, the growth of requests to Rostrud departments has slowed down. According to Tatyana Golikova, in March and April the increase in unemployment averaged about 1% per week. And in the last pre-holiday week (from April 22 to April 29), monitoring also recorded a decrease in the number of citizens registered with employment authorities by 15.8 thousand people, or 0.7%. Thus, according to the latest data, 2 million 267.6 thousand Russians are officially applying for unemployment benefits today. True, the rate of underemployment remains quite high - 1 million 553.4 thousand people are on forced leave, idle, or forced to work on a reduced schedule. The Ministry of Health and Social Development also notes that a decrease in the number of unemployed is not observed in all regions - according to monitoring data, in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Irkutsk and Nizhny Novgorod regions, there remains a slight but steady increase in those newly registered with employment agencies.
Despite the generally optimistic trend, the leaders of the Ministry of Health and Social Development have not yet decided to make new long-term forecasts. It is also difficult to judge to what extent the anti-crisis measures implemented in the labor market by the federal government and regional administrations have affected the change in statistics for the better. But it is clear that regional officials intend to use unemployment statistics to put pressure on the center and obtain new targeted subsidies to maintain stability in the labor market. In particular, the Moscow mayor’s office does not hide the fact that the capital’s needs for providing social support to those laid off exceeds 500 million rubles previously allocated to the city from the federal budget.