Kudrin is preparing Russians for the terrible unemployment

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Кудрин готовит россиян к страшной безработице

The digitalization of the economy will lead to reduction of employees by one third. Where will go these 30%, Kudrin said.

The Chairman of the accounts chamber Alexey Kudrin in an interview with French newspaper Les Echos said that in the next six years Russia will be able to reduce the number of employees by 30% thanks to the digitalization of the economy. He added that “new personnel policies will help the state to verify their motivation and to instill a new culture that focuses on achieving results in management”. But, ultimately, these reforms will reduce corruption in the system.
 

About necessity of reduction of the state apparatus, many experts and even officials say a long time. Back in 2010, who was then President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree on optimizing the number of officials, according to which in the next three years their number would be reduced by 20%. However, the specific results it has brought.

The problem is that Alexei Kudrin did not specify where it will go 30% of the downsized employees. One would assume that some part of them will retire, but in light of the probable increase of the retirement age, such a scenario can also be delayed. Recall that Kudrin still on the head of the Centre for strategic research was one of the most prominent proponents of raising the retirement age in Russia.

After the election of President and appoint a new Cabinet of Ministers the head of the government Dmitry Medvedev said that the need to “make the decision about raising the retirement age”. But he added that he has to take it “gently, carefully, on the basis of willingness and ability to continue work”.

At the same time, the government obviously has no uniform position on this question. As reported by the media, the meeting on retirement was to be held on may 30, but in the end was cancelled due to the lack of a consolidated position. The Finance Ministry proposes to raise the age of retirement in Russia to 65 years for men and 63 for women, and labor believes that it is better to raise these limits up to 65 and 60 years respectively.

Informed sources in the government reported that the increase in the retirement age may begin as early as 2019. Together with the reduction in jobs due to the digitalization of the economy it can lead to negative consequences in the labour market. Moreover, the digitalization applies not only to the public sector, but other sectors as service, banking, retail.

Take the most obvious example is the self-service terminals in supermarkets, which allow you to do without cashiers. As noted by doctor of economic Sciences, independent expert on social policy Andrei Gudkov, in our country today there is virtually no retraining programs that could solve this inevitable problem in the future.

— Raising the retirement age without being bound with the introduction of the Federal system of employment insurance would lead to serious aggravation of the problem with incomes. On the one hand, it will hit persons of pre-retirement and retirement age who may lose their jobs and will be forced to do everything to continue to work. On the other, it will lead to the fact that young people with great difficulty finding work. Despite the fact that every year the number of jobs in Russia is reduced by approximately 500 thousand.

Therefore, the Federal employment insurance system simply necessary. Currently we have only a regional system, which operates at the expense of local budgets. And they, because of their scarcity, to cope with the tasks can not. They are only able to pay unemployment benefits, and here it is necessary to carry out interregional and intersectoral flow of labor, retraining, professional development and other measures necessary in order to compete for employment.

— Are there any estimates of how may increase unemployment in the country after raising the retirement age, and even taking into account the digitization, which will lead to job losses?

— Unfortunately, such estimates have not been published. If there is some internal data, they were not disclosed. Can result only one example. One of the manifestations of digitization — the introduction of autopilots for cars. We have in this sector passenger and freight transport employs 8% of the workforce. So if the technology of unmanned vehicles will be used in the amount of 100%, we have 8% of the workforce may be exempted from the labor market. And this is the future, the next 10-20 years. So, in anticipation of this moment, drivers will need to retrain for other professions. The existing regional system of employment centres can’t cope.

Researcher, Institute of social analysis and forecasting Ranhigs Victor Lyashok believes that the digitalization of the economy is rather good, but also recognizes the need for retraining programs for workers of middle age.

— In the next 10 years we will have reduced the workforce by 10 percent due to demographic factors. The labour market out of a small generation of young people born in 90 years, and leaves numerous generation born in the ‘ 50s. Accordingly, we are waiting for the labour shortage and in such circumstances, the digitalization of the economy for Russia is a plus. If the result of this process will indeed be a release of manpower that will minimize the negative demographic factor.

But people who are thus “freed”, you need to get another job. Are there any programs for retraining, retraining of personnel in such a situation?

— While I have not heard about such large-scale programs. But to be honest, I have serious doubts that the digitalization of the economy will be able to bring large numbers of people from the labor market. The first article on this subject appeared in the beginning of this decade. Experts predicted that the West has to 2019-2020 years is going to see enormous changes, some jobs disappear, there will be others. But we’re already in the middle of 2018, and even in the West is nothing so radically has not changed.

As a result, these changes in the labor market, of course, happen. But to say that it will happen so fast, it seems to me, no particular reason. This can happen for 30-40 years, and this means that these processes will proceed immediately. People would have time to adjust to the new reality. The younger generations will gradually go into other professions associated with the digital economy. In that one moment the great mass suddenly realize that their work is useless, I do not believe. Even if Western countries do not, to say nothing of Russia, where the digitalization of the economy is much slower.

— And how the labour market will be affected by raising the retirement age? Because without retraining, many older workers will be difficult to continue to perform their duties, the youth, on the contrary, will not be able to find a job?

It all depends on the pace of raising the retirement age. If you do it too quickly, it is likely that the labour market will not be able to cope with it. If you raise the age of retirement for 3-6 months per year, relative to the standard rate for Western countries, the probability of a sharp increase in unemployment among the elderly is minimal.

Today we have a shortage of young labour which will increase. As international experience shows, a gradual increase in the retirement age leads to an increase of employment among the elderly, and unemployment is growing quite slowly, if at all growing. The labour market adjusts to the new reality, and significant disasters do not occur.

— Is there a need for retraining programmes for older workers?

— Probably not even for the elderly and for people of middle age. If the increase will not occur quickly, the pre-retirement age workers still retire not much later. But for workers of average age, which will fall under the new terms, you must enter and expand courses for re – training.

These people educated under the old economy, with outdated demand for certain qualifications, and therefore such programs are needed.

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