Study of Impact of Real Unemployment on Crime Highlights How Moscow Undercounts Number of People Officially Unemployed

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 23 – Russians are aware that one of the reasons that official unemployment is so low is that Moscow counts as unemployed only those who have registered as being without work at an employment center, something many without a job either temporarily or for a long time don’t do.

            But they are not aware that there is a broader category that better captures the share of Russians without work: “able-bodied people without a permanent source of income.” That category is rarely discussed, but the To Be Precise portal uses it to discuss the impact of real unemployment on crime (tochno.st/materials/kazdyi-vtoroi-osuzdennyi-na-moment-prestupleniia-ne-imel-postoiannogo-doxoda).

            The portal notes that “every second person at the same of the commission of crime had not permanent income,” nine times more than among all Russians. While this figure has been declining in recent years, it still calls attention to how many more people form this broader category of genuinely unemployed than does the official figure.

            Because it has become easier for people to find temporary or part-time work since the start of Putin’s war in Ukraine, To Be Precise says, “the number of people whom the courts classify as able-bodied persons without a permanent source of income has also been reduced.” But this statistic still remains higher than official unemployment.

            What this means is that those concerned with Russia’s real unemployment rate need to examine court documents rather than accept uncritically Moscow’s boasts about just how low unemployment in Russia really is, not an easy task but one required if one is to learn just how widespread unemployment there remains even now.