OREANDA-NEWS  Russia lacks about 1.5 million workers. This is how Svetlana Chupsheva, Director General of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI), assessed the shortage of personnel in the country, as quoted by the Izvestia newspaper.

The expert recalled that, according to Rosstat, the unemployment rate in the country is 2.3 percent, which is a historical minimum. At the same time, the Ministry of Economic Development believes that in the coming years, the demand for employees will grow, and the shortage of employees will grow to two million by 2030.

The problem can be solved by expanding the possibilities of training and retraining specialists to meet the needs of the economy and increasing labor productivity. In addition, it is possible to take up some jobs with the help of robotics.

"The third direction is a sound migration policy. It is important for us to determine which foreign specialists are needed — qualified, highly qualified — and in which sectors of the economy. Employers who attract migrant workers are obliged to take responsibility for them and provide them with migration and post—migration support," Chupsheva added.

Anton Kotyakov, the head of the Ministry of Labor, had previously promised that the problem of staff shortages in Russia would be solved at the expense of domestic resources, and not at the expense of migrants. According to the minister, the primary goal of the department is to maximize the use of the country's available internal resources. The personnel shortage can be closed with the help of rapid employment of graduates and retraining of citizens, he promised.

To reduce the number of migrant workers in Russia, it is necessary, first of all, to increase labor productivity. President Vladimir Putin said this during a direct line, combined with the annual press conference. The issue of foreign workers is very sensitive — entrepreneurs need hundreds of thousands of new workers, and there is nowhere to hire them, he explained.