Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
The Kremlin estimates they need nearly 800,000 extra sets of hands by 2030.
When talking about Russia’s manpower issues, the focus is usually on Putin’s war in Ukraine and the estimated nearly 1.4 million casualties the Russian forces have suffered in the war so far.
But Russia is also facing another manpower crisis at home: a labor shortage.
Russia faces a severe crunch in its construction sector. The domestic workforce is shrinking (partially due to thousands being enlisted in the military), and builders are struggling to keep projects on track.
To address this, the country’s biggest lender is stepping in to import labor from thousands of miles away.
Looking towards India
The Russian Ministry of Labor expects the construction industry to need nearly 800,000 extra workers by 2030 just to keep operating, The Moscow Times reported on June 3. Without them, building sites across the nation could grind to a halt.
Sberbank plans to solve this by helping large contractors hire directly from India.
Anatoly Popov, deputy chairman of the bank’s executive board, noted that the Indian labor market has a large surplus of workers capable of meeting Russian demand.
Proven global models
The bank believes this strategy will work. Indian crews have spent decades building infrastructure across the globe, especially in the Middle East. Sberbank wants to bring that exact model to Russia to counter the slowdown.
Popov highlighted the global track record of these teams.
“As it seems to us, this project has a great future because labor migrants from India, they are known in a large number of countries, on a large number of construction projects,” he stated, according to The Moscow Times.
The push comes during a difficult period for Russian developers. New project starts dropped by nearly 20 percent over the past year. Still, Popov said that financing continues for existing projects and that construction is moving forward.
Extreme economic pressure
To strengthen the recruitment pipeline, Sberbank is expanding its footprint in India.
The plan is to expand its current operations in India from three offices to ten, as well as establish a new headquarters.
This expansion comes amid deep economic troubles. Russia’s economic growth has stalled since the invasion of Ukraine, and at the beginning of 2026 the economy even contracted.
Recent Ukrainian drone strikes also knocked out a quarter of Russia’s oil-refining capacity. Combined with high interest rates and Western sanctions, corporate experts warn that the economy cannot fully recover until the war ends.
Source: The Moscow Times
