Attracting guest workers and increasing salaries. What awaits IT specialists in the labor market

But certain restrictions on the work of IT specialists will still be introduced. What changes and innovations await the IT labor market in the new year?

Irina Mishina

In 2022, about 100 thousand IT specialists left Russia. This is approximately 10% of the total number of employees in this industry, said Maksut Shadayev, head of the Ministry of Digital Development of the Russian Federation . At the same time, according to him, 80% of those who left continue to work for Russian companies.

Huge losses, fierce competition...

As you know, Andrey Klishas , head of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building , called for a ban on remote work for Russians who left their homeland. In early December, he announced the preparation of a relevant bill. Klishas expressed the opinion that the new rules should make the stay of such fellow citizens abroad less comfortable. On December 19, Andrei Isaev, deputy head of the United Russia Duma faction, explained that the initiative was being prepared not to punish anyone, but to ensure the safety of other citizens in order to prevent the leakage of Russian bases to unfriendly countries. According to him, the ban may affect the banking and transport sectors, their list will be determined by the government. “ Today, this bill looks like this, taking into account my proposals, as follows: it is not allowed to conclude an employment contract on remote work or an additional agreement to the main contract on remote work for non-residents of the Russian Federation according to the list determined by the government”, - Andrey Isaev said.

Maksut Shadayev, head of the Ministry of Digital Development, put an end to this issue, speaking at the government hour in the State Duma. According to him, it is “premature” to raise the issue of a complete ban on remote work for IT specialists who left Russia.

How significant are the losses that the IT labor market has suffered as a result of the wave of migration? How many specialists will be needed to replenish the industry? With such a question, "NI" turned to the president of the agency for the selection of highly paid personnel "Superjob" Alexey Zakharov.

“The loss of highly qualified specialists will indeed amount to more than 10 thousand people, these are senior level specialists. This is not only IT, but in general all highly qualified employees. Many work for Russia and will continue to work for it, but some will nevertheless reorganize, acquire new social ties and inevitably focus on the foreign labor market. This brain drain is comparable to what the country experienced in the early 1990s. By the way, it could have been three times more if not for the reaction of the Ministry of Digital Development - I want to thank them. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that Russian IT specialists are traditionally considered one of the strongest in the world . We compete for qualified IT specialists all over the world. Other countries purposefully poach IT specialists. Maybe now we do not feel a sharp “brain drain”, but we will definitely feel it soon”, - said Alexey Zakharov.

At the same time, experts agree that now the outflow of IT specialists abroad has somewhat stabilized. “Now mostly those who cooperated on the basis of long-term contracts, who signed contracts before that, are leaving. Otherwise, everything will depend on the state and its actions”, - Karen Ghazaryan, Director General of the Internet Research Institute, Chief Analyst of RAEC, believes.

Information security above all else

In which area the shortage of IT specialists will be most felt, it is already clear now. This is primarily information security. Experts in this field today are perhaps the highest paid in Russia. At the same time, new wishes and preferences from employers and applicants appeared.

“Trends that will affect the labor market in the IT industry in 2023 can be summed up. This is a selection of remote developers from the regions. At the same time, in the competition for highly qualified personnel, priority is given to companies that provide a respite from mobilization. The most attractive in terms of salaries will be import substitution projects in software and technology. Specialists in information security will also remain in high demand, including in ensuring the security of critical information infrastructure. Companies literally “hunt” for highly qualified candidates, but there are very few of them. In the coming year, digital promotion specialists will also remain in demand, as they directly affect the profits of companies”, - says Alexey Zakharov, president of the Superjob recruitment agency.

Also, judging by the job market, many companies are in need of database developers and analysts: big data research is extremely important for optimizing business processes and increasing profits. “In the IT industry, given the lack of good specialists, absolutely all industries are experiencing a shortage today. Among the most demanded, I would single out specialists in artificial intelligence and in working with data and information security”, - Karen Kazaryan, director general of the Internet Research Institute, chief analyst of RAEC, told NI.

Is the postponement of mobilization more important than a high salary?

How to attract highly qualified specialists to the IT market? And, most importantly, how to keep them? Experts agree on one thing: the main expectation for today is a reservation from mobilization. In second place are salary expectations. However, today it is a sin for IT specialists to complain about earnings: they are one of the highest paid specialists in the labor market. Judging by the data of analysts of the service for the selection of highly paid personnel "Superjob", the annual increase in the average market salary offers of employers in Moscow as of December 1, 2022 in the information technology industry amounted to 16.5%. For comparison : in construction it was 14.7%, in the banking sector - 11.3%, and in marketing, advertising and PR - 10%. That is, the IT industry today is the absolute leader in terms of wage growth. At the same time, as analysts note, there is a clear dependence of the salary level of programmers on the “complexity”, “prestige” of the university they graduated from: the highest average earnings in IT in 2022 are among graduates of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Moscow State University. Lomonosov, MEPhI and MSTU. Bauman.

By the way, even novice IT specialists are pleasantly surprised by salary offers. For young programmers, the starting salary, including all taxes, is 90,000-130,000 rubles.

Will IT help abroad?

How to ensure the influx of specialists in the IT industry?

“We can strategically develop the IT industry only by working with children. We need three days to replace the T-shirt with imports, but in order to have a sufficient number of IT specialists (especially at the senior level), children need to be prepared from kindergarten. It's great that we are opening digital departments, increasing the number of state-funded places. But it's all "the cart before the horse." Graduates of short-term IT courses do not know mathematics, which means they cannot grow to the senior level. We can influence the future of the country only by working with our children. The education of our children is in our hands. Let's teach them mathematics, otherwise we won't be able to replace imports”, - says Aleksey Zakharov, president of the Superjob agency for the selection of highly paid personnel.

However, Karen Kazaryan, Director General of the Internet Research Institute, Chief Analyst of RAEK, is more pessimistic: “IT classes and the development of mathematics and informatics in schools, alas, will not save the situation. Taking into account the projected figures for the release of IT specialists, schools and universities will not make up for the deficit. The way out, in my opinion, is in additional education, retraining in order to obtain an IT specialty and attract foreign specialists. Today it is known that there are enough high-level specialists, for example, in India and China”.