More Victims of Putin’s Pension Reform: Muscovites Over 40 Now Can’t Find Work

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 9 – Raising the pension age has claimed yet another class of victims: those over 40 who are looking for work but can’t find it given that those whose places they might have been able to occupy are still in them because they must work longer before retiring, according to a Novyye izvestiya blogger. 

            The blogger, whose screen name is Avroraiwa, says most Russians recognized that the regime’s claim that boosting the pension age would have no impact on the working age population was “a pure lie.” But now they are finding just how untrue such assertions were (newizv.ru/news/society/09-06-2019/lichnyy-opyt-posle-40-let-nayti-rabotu-v-moskve-prakticheski-nerealno).

            In fact, the blogger says on the basis of a survey of older adult work seekers, those who are finding difficulties obtaining employment because those somewhat older than they can’t retire are becoming ever younger, with people in their 40s even in the capital now saying that it is “practically unrealistic” to expect to find a job at the present time.

            Last fall, the Duma passed and Vladimir Putin signed a law banning age discrimination in employment (agediscriminationinemployment.com/tag/russia/), but few workers have been successful in bringing cases of this to trial. And when there are no vacancies because of the pension changes, this law does not prevent employers from refusing to hire others. 

            Indeed, it would apply only if employers began to hire people in their 20s or 30s in preference to those in their 40s or 50s. And in fact, the Russian anti-age discrimination measure may now be used by older workers to hold on to their jobs given that the ages at which they can get pensions have gone up.