Established optimism

The Ministry of Health and Social Development adjusts its data on layoffs

The Ministry of Health and Social Development released a report from which it follows that the downward trend in unemployment recorded at the beginning of the year continues into the fall. In particular, a message distributed yesterday states that over the past week the number of citizens registered at labor exchanges decreased by 0.9% and amounts to slightly more than 1 million 545 thousand people. For comparison: at the beginning of September there were about 1.7 million officially unemployed, and in mid-June this figure was recorded around the 2 million mark. “During the reporting week, the number of registered unemployed decreased in 63 regions of the country,” says the press service of the Ministry of Health and Social Development. . “At the same time, the decrease was especially significant in the Tula, Voronezh, Ryazan, Tambov regions, Primorsky Krai, and the Mari El and Altai republics.”

Thus, Tatyana Golikova’s department actually refutes its own pessimistic forecasts, according to which a slight decrease in the number of unemployed Russians in the summer was explained by a seasonal factor - employment in agricultural work and other temporary earnings. Consequently, it was expected that in September-October the unemployment graph would creep up. Some time ago, Ms. Golikova, speaking about trends in the labor market, predicted: by the end of the year, the number of officially registered unemployed will grow to 2.2 million people, and real unemployment, calculated according to the methodology of the International Labor Organization (ILO), will be 6. 2 million - 1.2 million more than in August. According to the forecast that Golikova announced on September 30 at a government videoconference, in January 2011 there should be even more Russians left unemployed - up to 6.4 million. This, of course, is less than in the crisis of February 2009, when jobs were lost 7.05 million people, but still quite a lot - about 9% of the working population.

However, there are only two months left until the end of the year, and the situation on the labor market looks somewhat more optimistic in comparison with the scenario of the Ministry of Health and Social Development. According to Rosstat, published at the end of last week, the number of laid-off workers and those who were hired has now become almost equal. The statistical agency calculated that 502 thousand people were employed in September, while 497 thousand became unemployed. Compared to September 2009, the number of workers awaiting dismissal has decreased fourfold. There are three times fewer of those who are idle or transferred to part-time work. If at the beginning of last year more than 1 million workers were sent on leave at their own expense without pay, now there are about 600 thousand such forced leavers. Thus, the situation with employment of the population, including part-time employment, is generally improving compared to the acute period crisis, Rosstat concludes.

According to the head of the labor force forecasting laboratory at the Institute of National Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Andrei Korovkin, by winter we should still expect an increase in real (and not officially recorded) unemployment. “If we assume that the economy has emerged from the crisis, then the traditional patterns of changes in the situation on the labor market come into force: agricultural work ends, the holiday season ends and, as a result, some workers are released,” the expert noted in an interview with a Vremya Novostei correspondent. According to Mr. Korovkin, seasonal trends are also included in the forecasts of the Ministry of Health and Social Development: in January next year the number of unemployed should be 6.4 million, and by March it will drop to 6.2 million. The expert notes that it is difficult to draw a conclusion about any trends in October It’s too early - the results of the month will be summed up only in November.

In general, Mr. Korovkin is not inclined to believe that the overall unemployment rate will soon drop to the levels of the prosperous years of 2006-2007, as Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov recently stated. The expert believes that although the labor market has calmed down (as evidenced by the “reanimation” of seasonal cyclicality), the pre-crisis level is unlikely to be reached by the end of next year.

“It is necessary to take into account that serious reductions continue in a number of industries: this includes construction, the production of building materials, the forestry, woodworking industries,” executive secretary of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia Alexander Shershukov emphasized in an interview with a Vremya Novostei correspondent. According to him, in the near future trade unions should announce the results of their own monitoring of the labor market. “Taking into account seasonal changes, “deferred unemployment” and the already mentioned situation in certain industries, we predict a surge in the number of unemployed,” Mr. Shershukov said.

Mikhail MOSHKIN