Russia’s labour force shrinks along with unemployment

Rosstat’s latest labour market survey, which is based on the methodology of the International Labour Organization (ILO), finds that the employed population (aged 15−72 years) fell by about 1 % y-o-y in the first quarter of this year. The contraction in the number of unemployed is now in its third year.

In the four-quarter period from April 2018 to March 2019, the employed population averaged just over 72 million, while number of unemployed averaged 3.6 million. After several years of increase, the employment rate fell slightly this year to 65.4 %. The unemployment rate fell to 4.7 %.

The size of Russia’s total labour force, which includes both employed and unemployed workers, witnessed an unusually large decline this year. At the same time, the number of persons outside the labour force increased. The increase is due almost entirely to the over 1 million persons in potential labour force, i.e. not actively seeking work, but who would like to have a job.