The labor market in the era of the pandemic: the Ministry of Labor found a million vacancies

Lyudmila Butuzova

In a pessimistic forecast version unemployment in the country in 2020 will increase to 9.5%. Economists at the HSE Institute for Social Policy forecast growth to 5.3 million people. According to the Federal State Statistics Service, already in January the number of unemployed was estimated at 3.5 million people, and to this day, according to the estimate of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia, they have not been unemployed less than 4 million. But this is what is called flowers. Various independent economists and analysts forecast real unemployment to rise to 13, and in the worst case, to 25 million people!

According to the latest official data from the Ministry of Labor, only 735 thousand unemployed were registered in the country, in March April the growth was insignificant - by 44 thousand, and he said, according to officials, "with a simplification of the procedure for registering unemployed as well as with an increase in the size of payments." In short, you understood: if the unemployment benefit had not been increased to 12,130 rubles and promised to be paid within three months, then the citizens would not have moved, and would not have spoiled the statistics of official unemployment, which the Ministry of Labor has not changed over the past five years.

Nevertheless, the coronavirus and the associated economic downtime forced this agency to descend from heaven to earth. In mid-April, the Ministry of Labor announced its own estimates of expected unemployment for the next three months. It will grow to 2.5 million people, the authorities will send almost 33.4 billion rubles for additional benefits .

Opposition politicians and HSE experts can prove as much as they like that the numbers are underestimated and there may not be enough funds planned for payments. However, the Ministry of Labor assures that there are enough funds, since the limits are allocated based on the most negative scenario - that is, about one million people will additionally apply to the employment services for these three months. Recall: everyone can work on the status of unemployed, but only those who honestly worked before March 1, paid taxes and contributions, had legal work experience, and at the same time fell victim to the coronavirus, have a chance to get benefits. And all sorts of self-employed people there, self-employed, who worked “in the dark” for ruined employers, although they also became a victim of a pandemic, should be twisted out without the help of the state.

Ok, let’s take for granted, although the fairness of such a policy raises very big questions. Here is Peter, the second largest city: everything is closed - from hairdressing salons to the river fleet. From the point of view of Smolny, the situation is alarming, but not terrible, unemployment increased from about 14 thousand to 20,372 people, only 0.9% of workers lost the opportunity to earn money. This was recently announced by the head of the Committee on Labor and Employment Dmitry Cherneyko on the TV channel "St. Petersburg". Human rights activists with figures in their hands prove the opposite: at least a million people were aground.

“The data operated by officials, about 20-30 thousand officially unemployed,” of course, does not reflect reality, ”confirms Vladimir Derbin, chairman of the Leningrad Trade Union Federation, the largest trade union association in the region . - For example, Petrostat’s calculations do not even give a clear answer to the question of how many people were employed in various sectors of the St. Petersburg economy in 2019. They have a total number of employees of only 1.4 million people. Based on these "statistics", it follows that, for example, only 1,400 women work at sewing enterprises in St. Petersburg, and 1,100 citizens are engaged in furniture production. To these figures, you can safely add several hundred thousand of those who work not on a state basis, but under a contract. In the fitness industry, in beauty salons, in the travel industry, in the food service and in transport, such employees account for up to 90%. There are no less than 30 thousand taxi drivers in the city, judging by the number of valid permits in the transport committee. If we add all these “unstable” employees to the “official” ones, we will get a whole million Petersburgers who were left without work and without income.

Moscow authorities, where the riot of coronavirus is comparable to rabies, and the number of closed enterprises approached the number of industries evacuated from the capital during the Great Patriotic War, unemployment remains at an unshakable level - a little over 30 thousand people. According to the data of entrepreneurs, there are already half a million closed IPs alone, as many workers are forced to dismiss small and medium-sized businesses. Even according to official figures, in Moscow 32% of residents stopped working, about 30% work part-time shifts. This greatly affected the incomes of citizens. Against this background, the recent statement by the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, that the prices of ginger and lemon will soon return to normal does not look soothing, rather, it sounds like a nasty joke about a puddle.

The Moscow Department of Labor offers Muscovites 62 thousand vacancies. But firstly they will not be enough for all unemployed, and secondly, these vacancies remain unoccupied from year to year. According to applicants who attend the "job fairs", most of the offers are either disappointing or the salary is several times less than the declared. “He was recently settled in by the driver of a cargo Gazelle,” says Otradnoy resident Alexander, VKontakte. “It turned out that in addition to this, you also need to unload the car, repair it, and, as soon as you need, fulfill the duties of a secretary's security etc. And the salary is a penny. Unless they asked for gas themselves. I came to work in one profession, and not in three. ”

A real curiosity with employment happened to Gennady V.: “At the beginning of March, it became clear that our office would be covered and we had to look for a place. I'm an electrical engineer, it seems, there should not be a problem. I called the service. It was as if they were waiting for me: “Will you go as an executive director to a subsidiary enterprise?” And then! The heart is drumming: production, machine tools, streams of light - I have dreamed all my life! They also wind up: “Maybe you and your wife are without work? They have a job manager. Gave the address and my wife and I went. The force found a barn. It has two guest workers and 4 pigs, terrible unsanitary conditions. It turned out that some pepper decided on self-isolation to engage in import substitution, to breed pigs in New Moscow. I was offered to automate this whole almshouse for 50,000 rubles a month, while my wife for 30,000 will remain a manager for now - i.e. senior over hard workers and pigs. You can live right there in the gatehouse. Oh my! We have three higher educations for two, and they lowered like that - nowhere below. ”

It is not known what happened next to this family, but even if they didn’t get settled, then on April 28 Rostrud opened up a window to the unemployed. “More than 1 million vacancies have been opened in Russia. Over the past month, employers posted about 1 million relevant job openings across the country on the Jobs in Russia portal, ”said Rostrud head Mikhail Ivankov, quoted by the press service.

How to explain this phenomenon? Where did it come from a million jobs at a time when the whole country is in quarantine and something is not heard about the opening of new industries or special platforms for business? Maybe the government was hiding something to surprise people in getting out of the pandemic.

“Do not flatter yourself, this is just a PR move to pass off the old mare as a young stallion,” said Alexander Kleimenichev , an expert at the Academy of Labor and Social Relations, with “NI”. - Almost all vacancies are old, not in demand due to low salaries or unacceptable working conditions. Now, of course, the situation is changing, left without income, people will be happy and will be nursing posts for 13 thousand rubles, as in Ulyanovsk, and will agree to help farmers for “paying for the harvest,” as the Astrakhan governor Igor Babushkin suggests. But this is all temporary. People will go to sit out, wait, trample in the hope that someday everything will return, "as it was." I do not really believe in this scenario. Let's remember how we had it. In the field of production since 2015, more than 300 thousand vacancies, they still remain. They are looking for engineers, locksmiths, turners, milling machines, technologists, electricians - i.e. those professions for which people have not been trained for more than 20 years. Drivers, machinists, mechanics are required by employers in the field of transport - in total more than 70 thousand different offers. The need for them, mainly in Siberia and small towns, Moscow mechanics and drivers provided. More than 100 thousand specialists are in need of healthcare throughout Russia. Sites in the capital cities will sooner or later fill up, the outback as it was with one FAP in three provinces, will remain so. Our employment service thinks on a scale, without reference to the regions and without understanding what is happening there.

With all this, the expectations of applicants are purely individual and almost completely distributed according to the regional principle. For example, in Togliatti, the largest number of unemployed are oriented to the automotive sector, although the city actually does not have such vacancies due to economic problems in this industry, but formally jobs have been opened here for telephone packers and barbers for field haircuts. Similar problems are in Vologda, Ivanovo, Voronezh and some other cities, where people came to the exchange from light industry, and Rostrud offers them jobs for mining craftsmen who were freed after the mines in Vorkut were closed. This is the same as giving Moscow 300 thousand vacancies for locksmiths and milling workers - they will never be filled, because the capital has enormous unemployment in other areas: tourism, hotels, restaurants - employment fell by 90%, sales - by 80%, banks, investments - by 80%, purchases - by 77%, accounting and finance - by 78%, personnel management - by 78%. beauty salons, fitness - by 78%, counseling - by 74%, law - by 72%. Am I not tired? Rounding off: we need an employment program tied to the regions, state participation in the labor market. The difference in unemployment rates, a terrifying period for finding a job, a low level of satisfaction with the offered vacancies, etc., speaks only about the low activity of the state and even about its elimination from the labor front.

Because of this "self-elimination," according to the expert, the state also wonders where it comes from today only self-employed and why, for example, retail and udalenka lead the market. Suddenly! And it was almost a shock that the most sought-after profession in March and April was a courier. According to estimates of recruitment agencies, offers on courier activities increased by 400%, in Russia as a whole - by 36%.

Perhaps the government is surprised at this, but the people are not. Network analysts, unlike state institutions, not without irony predict that this is only the beginning, couriers have a great future.

“Now a serious struggle begins for jobs in the field of food delivery men,” Dmitry Zotikov writes to the FB. They are claimed by both former merchandisers and former top managers. Soon they will be taken there only with higher education, or even with diplomas from prestigious business schools. The threat of massive unemployment hung over the country. She no longer needs hairdressers in barber shops, fitness trainers, and even bearded political scientists. And we need peddlers and couriers. All trade, like the rest of life, goes to the Internet. Birth, study, work and funeral services are all there now. Communicate with the outside world will only have to those who bring you something. And agree, it’s nice if it will be a former professor at the Institute of Higher Economics or the chairman of the board of directors of a large oil company. There is something to talk about with them through the bars! Unless, of course, you have money to buy what they deliver. Now you need to urgently critical look at what previously brought you income. And I'm afraid that you will not like the result of the inspection. Meanwhile, places in the food distribution industry are rapidly melting. But soon another service sector will appear: to protect the peddlers and couriers. After all, there will be more and more people who want to take away their pizza and stuff. It is in this way that our economy will revive, with difficulty getting down from a broken oil needle. And we will have to somehow find ourselves in the new conditions created. The choice now will be extremely scarce ... "

You can laugh, but according to serious scientists, any crisis is an opportunity to revise your price on the labor market.

`` Shocks, similar to the quarantine measures now being taken, always lead to a very serious transformation of the economy, some professions lose their relevance and become a thing of the past, while others, on the contrary, are emerging or gaining new opportunities, '' explains Irina Abankina, professor at the HSE Institute of Education . - It is unlikely that in the near future couriers with drivers will be out of work. Due to quarantine, food delivery companies are expanding. It is relatively easy now to get into food retail, logistics, and pharmaceuticals. The sudden school holidays have increased the demand for babysitting and tutors. At the same level, there remains a need for working professions, primarily builders.

For information: the highest average salaries in April 2020 were in the areas of top management (89 374 rubles), IT (83 361 rubles), construction (69 219 rubles), medicine and pharmaceuticals (66 475 rubles), service (66 091 rubles) ) Minimum wages are with insurers (32,500 rubles) and security personnel (40,427 rubles).

Add to this: Muscovites do not have to spread out too long, otherwise you will not be in time for dinner, and all the spoons will be taken out by the migrant workers. There is such a danger - migrants who have lost their jobs during the period of self-isolation have already begun to help with the employment of the Unified Migration Center near Moscow. In the region there are dozens of companies that continue their work, and they need workers. In what areas?

SCORE. In almost every urban district of the region, cashier-operations officers and sales people are required. Salary depending on the degree of employment from 35 to 60 thousand rubles.

PRODUCTION. In the suburbs there is enough production - from meat processing to automobile. Migrants can be offered vacancies of handymen with a salary of 45 to 54 thousand rubles a month.

ONLINE STORES. It requires pickers to form orders on invoices. Main responsibilities: packaging, labeling, assembly, packaging, labeling. Potential employees are promised a salary of 40 thousand rubles.

COUNTRY HOUSES. Many farmers and just rich people now need farm assistants who are ready to live on the territory and look after the garden, cook food, keep track of animals, work in the greenhouse. On farm yards, their labor will be estimated at 50 thousand rubles, and in private homes - up to 120 000 thousand. The last sentence is just a dream for Muscovites yearned for under house arrest. They would still have a welcoming host and a deck chair ...

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