Professor explains where workers get their high salaries
Russians have clearly not been suffering from excessive workaholism lately. The number of workers who work more than 40 hours a week has fallen to a record low over the past year. This is reported by Rosstat. At the same time, the number of our fellow citizens who work less than 40 hours a week (they make up 93% of all employed people) is increasing. In 2023, there were 68.4 million of them, in 2022 — 67.2, and 10 years ago — 64.8 million people.
How should we interpret these statistics? It turns out that real wage growth in the country is growing, but we work less and less time.
The total number of employed people in Russia is 73.6 million people. Of these, 3.25 million people worked more than the standard norm of 40 hours a week. Although in 2022 there were 3.34 million of them, and 10 years ago there were only 4.5 million people.
Rosstat data raises questions. Until now, it was believed that the growth of wages in the country was largely ensured by overtime work. Which is quite natural given the acute shortage of personnel. Of course, an increase in rates and salaries can and should occur due to increased labor productivity, when high technology comes to the rescue. However, with the re-equipment of production, in the era of sanctions, things are not so great.
In these conditions, the worker often stays after the shift to «put out» more products. The employer pays for overtime hours by law. This is called the extensive path of economic development, or, to put it simply, take more with your shovel and throw it further away. This is how some analysts explained the growth of wages in the country.
And now nothing is clear at all. With an acute shortage of labor (about 4.8 million people), we are not developing the movement of multi-machine operators (as was the case in Soviet times) and are not mastering related professions. On the contrary, we are switching to work according to a schedule, strictly from bell to bell.
Here are the figures from Rosstat. 709 thousand people worked over 51 hours a week last year, against 725 thousand in 2022. And 2.54 million worked from 41 to 50 hours a week in 2023, against 2.61 million a year earlier.
It is noted that the most overtime in Russia is in trade, in the repair of motor vehicles, in the transportation of goods and their storage. Next comes the construction sector.
Processing for the purpose of increasing production volume is not the best way to develop an enterprise. But there is no other way, somehow the growing demands of the population must be met.
Perhaps for this reason, the terms of overtime payment will change from September 1 of this year. The first two hours must be paid at one and a half times the rate, and the following hours at least at double the rate. At the same time, the employer is obliged not only to multiply the coefficient by the employee's salary or his wage scale, but also to take into account additional payments — bonuses and other material incentives. Such changes appeared in the Labor Code of the Russian Federation.
In general, everything is being done to interest our fellow citizens in the ruble and overtime, which for some reason are losing popularity.
— It can be assumed that since the demand for personnel is growing and Russians have no problems with employment, hired workers are becoming more independent from their employers, — says Alexander Shcherbakov, professor of the Department of Labor and Social Policy at RANEPA and Doctor of Economics. — And they do not agree to overtime, preferring to comply with contracts and legal norms regarding working hours. After all, it is not a fact that the company will pay for overtime.
— Unfortunately, there is unrecorded overtime, when the employer does not pay or does not pay in full for overtime hours. This process is not controlled very strictly. It can be said that trade unions and other bodies called upon to protect workers' rights are not doing their job very well. Additional measures related to control are needed.
— I don't think so, so far these are mostly declarations of intent, they show the state's course. But this problem needs to be addressed. People should receive fair payment for overtime.
— This cannot be. Our real wages have grown, which can be used to buy more goods. But wages are growing only due to an increase in production volumes, and not due to the fact that more money is being printed in the country.
Economic growth is taking place, in the world ranking of countries with the largest production volumes, Russia has risen to a higher level. By the end of this year, real economic growth is expected to be 3-5% of GDP.
Yes, technical re-equipment leaves much to be desired, in some periods we fell far behind, for example, in the 90s of the last century. But now we are trying to catch up, to move forward. Otherwise, we will not achieve technological sovereignty.