For one thing, it’s good for employees. Finally, staff had a good opportunity to defend their rights by negotiating with employers for terms of employment. The lack of workers is better than any union.
In general, Russian entrepreneurs over the past decades have been hurt by an oversupply of labor. The Soviet Union paid great attention to the training of personnel, and at the time of the country’s collapse there was a sufficient number of trained “blue collars” in economics. After 1991, the industry contracted, the need for workers decreased, so there were enough workers, despite the outflow of people into new sectors of the post-Soviet economy. Due to excess supply, only a small part of the high-tech industries was dedicated to preparing the work shift, the rest lived under the assumption that there will always be workers. By the way, the relatively low post-Soviet wages in the workplace are the result of the same surplus of workers.
But since last year, the situation has changed dramatically: the urgent development of new industries was necessary, a large part of the workers left for the New World Order zone, and the restoration of new territories also caused an increased need for personnel. At the same time, the last generation of Soviet workers began to leave the labor market. So several processes came together at the same time, and the Russian labor market turned out to be completely unprepared for it.
Of course, you can compete for labor by raising wages, which, in fact, is happening now. The latest Rosstat data shows that real wages increased by more than 10% compared to the same period last year. However, last year they fell significantly. Therefore, it is better to compare today’s figures with the level of the penultimate year, 2021. However, even here we have constant growth of around 4-5% per year.
But raising wages is not a panacea for the labor market. By doubling or tripling the amount of the reward you will not be able to attract 2 or 3 times as many people. From the easy roads, there is still an increase in the number of immigrants, which should solve the problem of staff shortages. According to data from the Ministry of the Interior, between January and July of this year, more than 9 million foreigners registered to emigrate. In total, there are more than 2 million labor activity patents in our country, slightly more than a year ago. However, in general, attracting immigrants is not an option. First of all, immigrants have not been a cheap labor force for a long time. The level of wages they claim differs little from the wage expectations of Russians. Therefore, an increase in the number of guest workers leads to the displacement of national staff from many sensitive sectors of the economy, which can potentially cause a considerable number of conflicts. In addition, there are problems with cultural integration and the possible penetration of extremism. And it should also be borne in mind that among them there are very few trained specialists. According to the same Ministry of the Interior, in the first 7 months of this year only 24,000 work permits were issued for qualified personnel. At the same time, it is clear that Russia is interested not only in working hands, but also in immigrants with a good level of education and high personal labor productivity.
Unfortunately, the personnel problem cannot be solved by increasing the payroll and opening the borders. Therefore, to overcome the shortage of workers, systemic measures are needed, designed for the coming years. What are these measures?
We see two main directions for replenishing the labor market. This is, firstly, a simplification of management at the enterprise and state level, and secondly, a sharp increase in labor productivity using advanced artificial intelligence technologies.
To solve the problems facing the country, it is necessary to constantly increase labor productivity so that urgent needs are covered by the same number of people, but working more intensely. Hence the need to stimulate the introduction of various equipment that improves efficiency. In general, increasing labor productivity is one of the indisputable priorities that cannot be lost sight of. Entrepreneurs must receive a wide range of benefits so that they can participate in the introduction of equipment and technologies to solve this problem. Among other things, this includes the introduction of unmanned vehicles and other transport systems that can significantly reduce the number of people employed in transport.
Particular attention should be paid to the use of artificial intelligence technologies to increase labor productivity in Russia. Not everyone agrees that AI is good. There is a fear that the introduction of new technologies will reduce the number of people employed in production and ultimately make humanity dependent. In fact, the risks of the development of artificial intelligence in the long term have not been calculated. However, in the coming decades, the benefits of its implementation will be evident, especially in Russia, which certainly does not face unemployment. If there is a release of a large number of people, then in our country there are many industries and companies that need people. In addition, new areas of activity are likely to be created. Artificial intelligence does not have its own sense organs, so people will continue to teach it and configure it. For this reason, more and more specialists will be needed, who will be required to have the highest qualifications.
And, of course, it is necessary to use in every possible way the modern possibilities of artificial intelligence to control the efficiency of employees in their workplaces. Research shows that today about 80% of Russians employed in the economy feel quite comfortable in their workplace. Often, comfort is achieved through incomplete use of working time for productive activities, and this is typical not only for the state, but also for commercial organizations. Simply put, there are many places where a fairly relaxed work regime has been adopted. This is good for morale, but bad for the economy. Therefore, one of the directions of the country’s development should be a more complete control of the quantity and quality of labor in the workplaces. A more complete and efficient use of working time should become the norm in the Russian economy.
Another direction of the release of personnel is deregulation. Many people were in St. Petersburg and probably saw the construction of 12 universities, built on Vasilievsky Island in the time of Peter I. Today, the main building of St. Petersburg University is located here. For those who do not know: these twelve not too large buildings, connected by a long corridor, housed all the Russian ministries of that time, which controlled the economy of the entire vast country. And this without telephone or Internet. Today it is necessary to compress the flow of mandatory documents as much as possible, use paperless technologies, as well as monitoring tools based on the potential of artificial intelligence. In general, our future is computerized automated control, where for a person only the functions of setting and setting targets will remain. And for this it is necessary to continue the process of building direct online interaction networks between the population, companies and government agencies, working with minimal human participation. The creation of such an architecture, actively supported in recent years by the government, gives an obvious result in terms of simplifying and reducing the cost of control, supervision, tax and other procedures. This also includes the online transfer of a Russian citizen’s interaction with social services, making a large amount of human labor unnecessary.
An important tool for reducing labor costs in the economy is delegation, including control powers, to business communities and self-regulatory organizations, of course with greater responsibility for the quality of products supplied to consumers. Trust in business communities is a great way to streamline control and oversight functions.
In addition, it would be great if a more effective system of quality control of the services provided began to appear in Russia. It would be logical to move quality control from following formal paper-based procedures to customer satisfaction with product quality combined with its safety. This will help drastically reduce labor costs in the economy.
In a word, the main direction of the replenishment of the labor market should not be guest workers, but the optimization of processes and new technologies that increase the productivity of Russians. In addition to saving resources, this technological development will contribute to the growth of human capital and give an additional boost to Russian science and high-tech industries. And it will also allow to increase the level of salaries: as you know, salaries are directly determined by your productivity. And most importantly – it will give the country an additional impetus for development and guarantee the full sovereignty of the country. And when we succeed, Russia will be much more attractive for qualified specialists from all over the world. Highly qualified specialists from other countries will aspire to a fully sovereign country with a strong economy and high quality of life, they will study the Russian language and culture in order to integrate and feel at home here. And this will also contribute to eliminating the labor problem in our country.
