Expensive cleaning lady and priceless plumber: what services have grown in price during the pandemic

Experts from the Economics channel have compiled a list of prices that have risen in Russia over the past year. So, the price of cleaning services for the year immediately rose by 50%, which was the absolute maximum among the entire service sector.

One of the reasons is the outstripping growth in demand (by 65%) compared to the growth in supply, which increased by 35%.

Repair and construction services in 2020 rose by 25% compared to 2019. The demand for these services has grown by 37%, and the supply by only 3%.

Calling a “master for an hour” became 25% more expensive, while demand increased by 46%, and supply - by 23%.

Installation of equipment and advertising and printing services rose by 20% during the pandemic. But if in the installation of equipment the rise in prices is explainable - supply increased by only 14%, and demand - by 81%, then the rise in prices for advertising services by changing the balance of supply and demand is difficult to explain, experts write.

The reasons for the rise in the cost of household services, however, lie on the surface. The pandemic and quarantines have sharply reduced the number of guest workers in Russia. Ukrainians, for example, who have worked in our country for years, have been sitting in their homeland for 11 months, unable to return to places of permanent earnings. The number of immigrants from the Central Asian republics and Moldova has decreased by more than half. In theory, handy citizens of the Russian Federation should have replaced the foreigners. However, this did not happen for many reasons. Most of our men prefer to sit at barriers and checkpoints in the rank of security guards, rather than look for more "creative" work, retraining to become plumbers, electricians, construction workers, which are now lacking.