Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 11 – The Russian
government has done almost everything it can to hide unemployment, encouraging
firms and enterprises to keep people on the job even while cutting their hours
and wages. But Moscow is running out of options to block a dramatic rise in
unemployment in many sectors of the economy.
Earlier this week, for example,
Vedomosti reported that between 2006 and 2015, the number of Russians employed
in processing industries fell from 12.44 million to 10.34 million, a decline
partially hidden by a dramatic rise in the number of siloviki from 4.94 million
to 5.33 million (vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2017/03/07/680254-krizis-siloviki-chinovniki).
In a commentary on the Svobodnaya
pressa portal entitled “Are People Necessary?” Stanislav Vorobyev says that between
2008 and 2014, all sectors, except retail trade, financial services, and state administration
(including defense) showed declines in the number employed, a trend that has
only gotten worse during the crisis (svpressa.ru/blogs/article/167995/).
Vorobyev cites the conclusion of
Tatyana Maleva, a specialist on economic prediction at the Russian Academy of Economics
and State Service, that “the situation now is even worse than it was in the
1990s,” a period most Russians look back to with horror.
During that decade, Maleva says, the
population was able to survive thanks in part to entrepreneurial and non-governmental
institutions, “but now the state defines where and how many work places are
created and the possibilities for people are significantly less” and will
continue to be so.
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