The greatest demand for specialists is now demonstrated by Russian industry, agriculture, transport and logistics. Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova shared such statistics on June 26 during the All-Russian Employment Fair. At the same time, authorities see the prospect of unpredictable changes in the labor market under the influence of artificial intelligence (AI) – adaptation to this trend of jobs and educational programs is yet to come.
The authorities now clearly see what is happening in the Russian labor market, but in the near future the picture may change significantly due to the introduction of AI by companies. This conclusion can be drawn from the plenary session “Labor Market: Challenges, Trends, Solutions” held as part of the All-Russian Employment Fair, in which representatives of the government’s social block and employers took part.
Now, said Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, the main demand for workers is in the manufacturing industry – this area accounts for almost every fifth vacancy.
Among the most sought-after specialists are engineers, industrial workers, and machine operators. In second place are the sectors of agriculture, construction, transport and logistics, and housing and communal services.
The third block, noted Tatyana Golikova, included healthcare, education and social services. The minimum number of vacancies is observed in trade, services and the hospitality industry. At the same time, the Deputy Prime Minister emphasized, the situation on the labor market is still stable – the unemployment rate remains a record low (2.2%), and the number of available vacancies exceeds the number of unemployed (by about 500 thousand).
This dynamics of demand for personnel from employers allows the government to predict the number of target numbers for admission to universities and colleges. Now more than a third of university graduates do not work in their specialty; among college graduates this figure is 20%. To solve the problem of mismatch between qualifications and workplace requirements, the Ministry of Labor proposes to further develop targeted admission – so far it accounts for 13% of admission to educational institutions. As the head of the department, Anton Kotyakov, noted, over 12.5 thousand employers are now participating in the targeted training system. The regions are already actively working in this direction. For example, as the governor of the Novosibirsk region Andrei Travnikov said, over the previous five years the region increased the target numbers for enrollment in popular educational programs at universities by 5 thousand places and by another 3 thousand places in secondary vocational education programs.
At the same time, Tatyana Golikova admitted, the government currently does not have a forecast as to how the labor market will change under the influence of AI.
“These are very serious things, because in those workplaces where artificial intelligence is applied, we have to add up the formula of man plus machine,” she said.
The Deputy Prime Minister clarified that traditional employment will remain, but it remains to be seen in which sectors. In addition, you need to monitor the demand for new skills.
Estimates of the share of jobs that may be affected by changes due to AI, recall, range from 1% to 40% (see “Kommersant” dated June 7). By the end of 2026, the Ministry of Labor plans to create a reference book on AI functions for each profession. This will subsequently allow new requirements to be introduced into professional standards and curricula in order to better prepare graduates to interact with new technologies.
The turn of the discussion about personnel in the government towards the introduction of new technologies slightly reduces the importance of the government personnel forecast launched several years ago. If the forecast of labor supply is made on the basis of demographic data and can be considered relatively accurate, then the forecast of demand for personnel from companies depends not only on expectations of economic growth, but also on the speed of introduction of technologies that affect labor productivity. Recognition of the fact that it is impossible to assess the consequences of the spread of AI essentially nullifies any attempts to create a reliable and durable assessment of labor demand in the Russian Federation.
