Ever More Graduates of Russian Higher Education Can’t Find Jobs in Their Specialties, New Study Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 31 – There is an increasingly poor fit between the specialties Russian university students have prepared for and their ability to find positions in the economy, and this imbalance is likely to increase unless Moscow does more to ensure universities produce what the economy needs, the Center for Macro-Economic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting says.

            The results of that study which focuses on the specific needs of the economy and the failure of universities to prepare graduates to find jobs in it are presented and discussed at rosbalt.ru/news/2024-08-30/okonchit-vuz-i-ostatsya-bez-raboty-kakie-professii-na-samom-dele-nuzhny-ekonomike-5181798.

            That is not a problem unique to Russia, but it is one that there as elsewhere has social and political consequences far broader than the Center addresses. To the extent that this imbalance is growing rapidly, it will produce a class of disappointed and angry young people who may become a seedbed for the growth of political radicalization.

            That is what happened in 19^th century Russia where university graduates often felt they had no place in the existing society and thus decided they needed to change the society so that they would have a place; and it is what happened more recently in the Arab Spring when university graduates who couldn’t find appropriate work took to the streets to protest.

            If this new study is correct that this imbalance is only going to increase in Russia, the same thing could happen in that country in the coming decades – or at least force the Kremlin either to use more coercion to prevent it or suffer the consequences of economy decay and an increasingly angry population.