"Distortion in the labor market": almost a third of Russians plan to change jobs in 2025

Almost a third of Russians are not satisfied with their place of work: according to a survey conducted by one of the major recruiting services, 27% of respondents plan to change their job by the end of this year. The absolute majority (68%) are dissatisfied with the salary level, 37% - with the schedule or working conditions. Meanwhile, the situation on the domestic labor market today is so contradictory that there can be no talk of any automatic, problem-free implementation of all these plans.

Among other reasons for looking for a new job, people named the lack of career prospects (32%), conditions for professional growth (26%), imbalance between work and personal life (23%), conflicts with colleagues or management (9%). It also turned out that 8% of respondents are ready to completely change their profession or field of activity.

The fact that 68% of workers cited a salary level that suits them is quite consistent with the economic realities of 2025. First of all, with the inflation factor, which, although slowing down in recent months, still eats up a fairly significant share of real wages. In addition, according to experts, today the demand for additional labor is decreasing - due to the general cooling of the economy, the deterioration of the production and financial capabilities of businesses against the backdrop of a high key rate and expensive loans. As a result, as shown by a survey of the Central Bank conducted in the corporate sector, real wages will increase this year by only 3.3%, while in 2024 the growth was 8.7%.

"On the one hand, in the last few years, many vacancies have opened up on the labor market. For the reason that entire sectors, in particular agriculture, have quickly begun to lose people who have gone to where they pay more," says Alexey Zubets, director of the Center for Social Economics Research. "But I would not call the personnel turnover high: in the economy as a whole, it fits into the figures of 5-7% per year. In addition, a huge number of people are looking for work without quitting. The situation as a whole remains contradictory: the number of layoffs is growing, 74% of companies plan to cut costs this year, that is, get rid of unnecessary employees. Moreover, the least valuable and qualified will be "cut", and at the same time, there will be an acute need for trained and skilled people."

Thus, Zubets notes, there is an imbalance in the labor market: the overall tension is growing; some workers - mostly highly paid - are in great demand, while others, on the contrary, are constantly on the verge of dismissal. The latter have it especially hard: representatives of this category are under pressure from inflation, mandatory payments, and loans. Last year, food inflation was about 20%, so in order to maintain people's purchasing power at a relatively tolerable level, their salaries need to be increased by at least 10% per year.

As for the demand for additional labor, according to MK's source, if in 2023-2024 it was primarily the military-industrial complex that was in demand, today the emphasis is shifting to civilian industries. This includes transport, logistics, finance, marketplaces, apartment and private home renovations - in a word, services focused on the needs of the population. Discussing what makes workers themselves look for a new job, Zubets also recalls cases that are quite exotic against the general background, although not uncommon. It happens that a person wants to change not so much their place of work as their occupation. Because in their youth they chose the wrong point of application of their strengths and abilities, and, say, by the age of 50 something clicked in their head, and they, being a professional financier, mastered the profession of a cook. And here the salary criterion is clearly not the main one.

Meanwhile, as another Russian recruitment service reported, in June the average salary offered in Russia was 86.8 thousand rubles. Moreover, in some cases, employers are ready to pay two and even almost three times more. This list includes 25 professions, and it clearly illustrates how large and insurmountable the gap is between the two categories of workers - on the one hand, highly qualified and highly paid, and on the other, low-skilled and low-paid. There is no and cannot be any flow from the "lower league" to the "higher".

The leaders are IT specialists, who can count on a salary of approximately 240 thousand rubles, brokers (235 thousand), commercial and financial directors (201 thousand), directors of information technology, marketing and PR (200 thousand rubles each). The outsiders are educators and nannies (47.4 thousand), call center operators (46.9 thousand), cleaners (42.8 thousand), janitors (40 thousand rubles).