OREANDA-NEWS. The Russian truck manufacturer KamAZ plans to employ up to 100 prisoners serving sentences in penal colonies, said NEWS.ru the head of the press service of the company Oleg Afanasyev. He noted that the company agreed to participate in the program of the Federal Penitentiary Service (FPS) of the Russian Federation. Thus, the interlocutor commented on the relevant media reports about the future employment of prisoners against the background of a shortage of labor.

«There is a labor shortage all over the country. We are talking about employment of prisoners for a long time. There is a social program of the Federal Penitentiary Service — to employ convicts under a number of articles, where punishment involves a colony-settlement. We are ready to participate in it. There is a whole category of convicts who do not pose a threat, and they are sentenced, as a rule, to settlement. And instead of them living in a settlement, they are employed at industrial enterprises», Oleg Afanasyev added.

Afanasyev stressed that this practice is adopted not only by the automaker, but, for example, at the petrochemical enterprises of Tatarstan. He noted that KamAZ can employ up to 100 people.

«At the moment, preparations are underway for this. There are requirements of the FPS. It determines the working conditions. We will pay prisoners as ordinary workers. <...> The average salary at KamAZ varies from the place of work – from 40 to 50 thousand rubles a month», summed up Afanasyev.

The Russian labor market recorded the maximum shortage of workers since 2014. The shortage of personnel has been growing since the beginning of 2021 as business activity recovers. This is stated in the study of the audit and consulting network Finexpertiza. In May 2021, the number of open vacancies reached 2.1 million and has not dropped for six months, and from October 2020 to October 2021, the need for personnel increased by almost a quarter.