RIA Novosti: Ex-finance minister forecasts more mass layoffs, fall in incomes in Russia

Alexei Kudrin file photo

(RIA Novosti – Moscow, October 4, 2015)

Former Russian Finance Minister Aleksey Kudrin believes that the situation on the labour market in the Russian Federation is not improving so far and forecasts that the period of layoffs will continue for some time.

“It has now become clear that the situation is not improving, and mass layoffs are starting in the autumn. The period of layoffs will continue for some time. This is why our real incomes will be falling, and social wellbeing indicators will not be good,” Kudrin said in an interview to Business FM radio on Sunday [4 October].

He forecasts that the number of those out of work in Russia may rise in 2016.

“Unemployment will probably even rise a little. What is the most unpleasant in this crisis though, in contrast to 2008-2009, is a serious drop in the real incomes of the population. They will fall by nearly 7 per cent. Wages [will fall] by 10 per cent in real terms,” Kudrin forecast.

[Passage omitted: Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets said earlier the labour market was in good shape but warned of emerging problems of wage arrears and underemployment. See “Deputy PM says ‘negative trends’ on Russia’s labour market on the rise”, released on 2 October.

A separate RIA Novosti report quoted Kudrin saying in the same interview that he regarded Putin’s actions in Syria as “quite justified” because the Islamic State group was “a threat to the whole world”.]

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