News
Russia: spring revival
Statistics and press releases published on Russian job boards indicate a certain recovery on the labour market.
At the end of last year, optimization and reduced labour costs were widespread in Russia. Some employers laid off surplus workers they had recruited before the crisis, in times that had been economically better when the market was quickly expanding. Others baulked at the uncertainty and released entire departments. Recruitment plans were shelved as companies took a step back to see which path the market would follow.
At the end of the first quarter, demand for new employees returned. Companies have realized that they cannot get by without certain workers, and job-seekers, for their part, have taken stock of the situation and reduced their salary demands by 15% to 20%. As a result, companies can exploit this situation by hiring the best candidates without exceeding the allocated budget.
The increase in vacancies is primarily a consequence of deferred demand. The rate of recruitment, despite picking up somewhat, remains relatively low; the majority of companies are advertising one to three positions on recruitment boards. The market is changing quickly and it is not unusual for companies to start recruitment processes only to abandon them. What is more, a further wave of redundancies cannot be discounted.
The spring revival on the Russian labour market is confirmed by data reported by our partner Rabota.ru. Throughout the first quarter, the number of vacancies rose, and while in April they stood at virtually the same level as in March, this was still a 56% increase on January. Most in demand are IT specialists; the number of positions advertised in the IT industry has multiplied by more than two-and-a-half times compared to the beginning of the year. These vacancies are followed, after a rather large gap, by offers in accounting, logistics and marketing/PR.
While the number of positions in recent months has gone up, in the same period the number of new CVs has shown the opposite tendency, with 20% fewer in April than in January. The Rabota job board also examined how long its users had been looking for work. A poll showed that the vast majority of job-seekers (34%) take between one and three months to find work. On the other hand, every fifth job-board user spends more than six months trying to get a job. These are candidates who lost their jobs during or before the first wave of redundancies.
22.05.2009