Labor productivity in Russia

Main article: Labor market in Russia

Chronicle

2023: The Ministry of Economic Development of Russia issued a rating of regions on labor productivity. Moscow is not in the leading group

On November 1, 2024, the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia published the final rating of the regions for the implementation of the national project "Labor Productivity" for 2023. Rostov Region, Krasnodar Territory, Republic of Tatarstan and Samara Region topped the list of 32 leading regions.

According to the press service of the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia, the rating was compiled jointly with the FCC ANO for regions that attract enterprises to the national project with the support of a federal subsidy.

Deputy Minister of Economic Development of Russia Murat Kerefov notes the absence of lagging subjects in the ranking, while 20 regions entered the middle group. In the category of regions without target indicators for the involvement of enterprises, the Stavropol Territory is in the lead.

The group of leaders included Altai Territory, Belgorod, Volgograd, Vologda and Voronezh Regions, St. Petersburg, Irkutsk, Kaliningrad, Kaluga Regions, Kemerovo Region - Kuzbass and Krasnodar Territory. Also among the leading regions are the Kursk, Leningrad, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod and Novosibirsk regions.

Among the leading regions, Omsk Orenburg regions,,,,,,, are also noted. Perm Territory Republic of Bashkortostan Rostovskaya Ryazan Samara Saratov Sverdlovsk region Complete the list of leaders,,,, and. Tomsk Tyumen Udmurt Republic Ulyanovsk Chelyabinsk Yaroslavskaya region

When forming the rating, the indicators of replication of the best practices for increasing productivity, the coverage of enterprises with educational programs, the volume of concessional lending and the effectiveness of the work of regional competence centers were taken into account.

The assessment also included an analysis of the increase in labor productivity at participating enterprises according to the Federal Tax Service and the additional contribution of the regions to achieving indicators at the federal level.^[1]

2022: Why labor productivity in Russia has decreased for the first time since 2009

In 2022, labor productivity in Russia decreased by 3.6%, which was the steepest drop since 2009, when the decline was measured by -4.1%. This is evidenced by the data of Rosstat, disclosed in October 2023.

The labor productivity indicator is calculated on the basis of data on labor costs for the release of goods and services - they, in turn, are based on information on the distribution of labor resources and the time that employees spend on work.

In 2022, labor productivity decreased by 3.6%

One of the reasons for the decline in labor productivity in the Russian Federation was the departure of large Western companies from the Russian market. However, several industries recorded an increase: the largest - in agriculture and hunting (by 8.7%), in construction (by 1.8%), in the field of tourism and catering (by 1.3%).

An increase in 2022 was also recorded in the industry of providing electricity, gas and steam - by 0.8%. The maximum reduction in the indicator was observed in wholesale and retail trade, repair of vehicles and motorcycles - by 12.9%.

Rostislav Kapelyushnikov, deputy head of the HSE Center for Labor Research, believes that a decrease in production in most industries led to a drop in labor levels in 2022 while maintaining or increasing employment. According to him, "the reduction in GDP is expected to lead to a decrease in productivity, since employment is an inertial variable and even during a period of crisis shocks remains relatively stable."

According to Yuri Simachev, a leading researcher at the Laboratory for Analysis of Institutes and Financial Markets of the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEI) of the RANEPA, the increase in productivity in agriculture, tourism and public catering reflects a reorientation of demand in these sectors.

In 2022, travel abroad and imports of a number of goods into the Russian Federation became more complicated, which is why the Russians switched to domestic resorts and food products, he said in a conversation with Kommersant[2]

2019

Labor productivity (PT) is considered very simple: GDP is divided by the number of people employed. If we are talking about the country as a whole. And GDP is usually determined by the production method - by value added.

In Europe, as of 2019, the highest PT in Luxembourg, there is almost a hundred.

In this place, some doubts creep in. What if something is wrong with this indicator? And these canonical examples arise. The Russian surgeon cuts out the appendix, and this operation costs 40 thousand rubles. And when an American surgeon does the same thing, it costs 40 thousand dollars there. Thus, the latter is 70 times higher. But let me, both there and there, the appendix was only cut out by one! Now, if an American had chopped 70 pieces in the same time. It's actually a spherical PT in a vacuum. For macroeconomics, the cost of labor itself is much more important than its number.

A simple example: a digger works 12 hours a day, and a programmer works 8 hours a day, while the work of a programmer is several times more productive, because it costs more.

The root of low labor productivity in Russia is not that people work little or little. And in the fact that the economy has a low share of knowledge-intensive, technological industries that give the main surplus value. Therefore, all claims about productivity should be sent to the Russian authorities. It is on their work that the direction of economic development depends.

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