Kathrine Frich
Keeping a modern economy running requires a massive, steady supply of human energy.
When sudden crises drain the available workforce, everyday citizens are often forced to carry the extra weight.
A major nation is now asking its citizens to make a deep sacrifice just to keep the wheels turning.
Breaking old rules
According to Bloomberg cited by Onet, President Vladimir Putin recently signed a law that dramatically forces citizens to spend more time on the clock. The legislation effectively doubles the country’s annual overtime limit.
For the past half-century, the old Soviet Labor Code capped yearly overtime at 120 hours. This new decree pushes that ceiling all the way up to 240 hours.
The law also scraps critical safety regulations. Managers can now recall employees from hazardous or health-damaging industries to fill empty shifts.
A missing workforce
This extreme policy shift comes as the nation grapples with a historic worker shortage. Bloomberg reports that the country currently lacks 1.5 million workers. That is roughly equal to the entire population of a major city like Yekaterinburg. Looking ahead, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs warns that the deficit could hit three million people by 2030.
Official justification documents claim that the massively expanded hours will offset the immediate national need for nearly 50,000 new jobs. State data also boldly claims that 90 percent of the population is completely willing to do it.
Independent economic data paints a much darker picture. Experts trace the worker drain directly to the war in Ukraine. The conflict triggered sudden military mobilizations, staggering battlefield casualties, and a massive wave of young men fleeing the country.
The new normal
Some Kremlin billionaires previously floated even more radical ideas to patch the leaking economy. Proposals included a return to the Stalin-era six-day workweek or putting a massive army of 40 million retirees back to work.
But demographers warn that the current manpower shortage is permanent. A crashing birth rate and a rapidly aging society mean the factory floors will stay quiet.
Demographer Igor Yefremov noted that the current state of the labor market “is not a crisis, but a new norm for the coming decades.”
Sources: Bloomberg, FinExpertiza, Onet
