The reasons why the Russian labor market is growing at the expense of the elderly

In general, the situation, according to them, is associated with the indisputable fact that some citizens who have entered the retirement age continue to work, while others are in no hurry to go on a well-deserved rest. Analysts interviewed by MK, in turn, point to a complex set of sometimes obscure circumstances and processes (including demographics) that contribute to an increase in the average age of Russians employed in the economy.

According to Anastasia Gorelkina, an expert on social communications and family initiatives, it was the older generation that actually acted as the main buffer, which in recent years helped the economy cope with an acute staff shortage. There are several reasons. Firstly, the very attitude towards the end of a career is changing: more and more older people prefer to remain professionally active. Secondly, economic motives play a significant role – the desire to maintain the usual level of income, financial stability and social status. Third, there is a growing demand for experienced workers from the business side: companies facing a shortage of qualified personnel are increasingly offering flexible employment formats for senior employees – part-time work, project work or remote formats – which makes continuing a career more comfortable.

“The demographic context is also important: over the past decade, the share of young people aged 20-29 years has significantly decreased from 20.8% to 13.5%,” Gorelkina said. The contribution of this age group to the overall increase in employment was relatively small - about 300 thousand people. At the same time, the long stay of experienced employees in the workplace makes it difficult for young professionals to take managerial and profile positions, since the “upper” levels remain occupied longer. Another aspect is an indirect increase in the burden on social and medical institutions: longer labor activity requires attention to the health of workers. Finally, the resource of this age group is not infinite: the study emphasizes that the opportunities for further employment growth at the expense of older ages are close to exhaustion.

In general, the situation is due to the pension reform of 2019, because of which people later end their working careers. As Freedom Global analyst Vladimir Chernov reminds, in 2026 the general retirement age is 59 years for women and 64 years for men, so it is wrong to attribute all employees 55+ to pensioners. As for the potential risks, the main problem is that when experienced employees retire, it is difficult for companies to quickly prepare a replacement for them. This limits the expansion of production and increases the cost of recruitment and training, especially where qualifications are accumulated over the years.

“We have a direct consequence of pension reform. And since there is a clear shortage of qualified personnel in the labor market, employers are trying to retain older specialists, says Alexey Zubets, director of the Center for Social Economics Research. We must also take into account the demographic upswing provided by the last Soviet generation. People born in the late 1980s and early 1990s entered the labor market in the 2010s and for a time provided an increase in the total number of employees. And then we found ourselves in a demographic pit, the negative consequences of which the government tried to minimize through pension reform. When a retired employee drops out, there is simply no one to replace him in the workplace. It is only partially possible to solve the problem by automating production and attracting migrant workers.”.

Leading researcher of INION RAS Sergey Smirnov points out the factor of new technologies that prompted young people to choose the most convenient distance employment format for themselves. In a number of sectors, it has become possible not to sit at work from call to call. Many have learned to make a living by blogging or similar practices. And here the psychological point is fundamentally important: the older generation does not really understand how to exist outside the official labor market, in free mode, without relying on social assistance from the state. Finally, over the past decades, the average life expectancy (and its quality) has increased significantly in the country and in the world, which also affects the position of workers who have entered retirement age. We recall the phrases of literary classics of past centuries, for example, Tynyanovskoe: Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was older than all those gathered. He was thirty-four years old, the age of extinction.”.