14 February 2003 03:39
Jobless Rate Grows to 1.5 Million
The Labor Ministry said Thursday that the number of registered unemployed adults grew by 200,000 to 1.5 million last
year.
The United Nations, however, puts the number of unemployed at 5 million, or 3.5 percent of the country's 143
million people.
Labor Minister Alexander Pochinok, addressing a Cabinet meeting on the government's labor policy, said most of
the new unemployed -- 190,000 people -- were in Chechnya. The republic had not been included in the count in recent
years.
Unemployment grew to 10 percent of the population in 16 regions, while more than a fifth of the country was
registered as living below the poverty line, he said.
The figures include only people who officially registered at federal employment centers -- meaning that even those
who applied for assistance finding jobs but did not register were not counted.
Tatyana Chetvernina, head of the Center of Labor Market Studies, said that the Labor Ministry's statistics do
not draw an objective picture of unemployment in the country because thousands of people have never turned to employment
centers and many more do not know that they exist.
She said that while the UN's International Labor Organization's figure of 5 million was not completely
accurate, there was a significant gap between them and government statistics. "In most countries, the ILO's
figures and the official figures are very close, but in our country it is other way around," she said. She said the
gap for Russia was larger than any other country the ILO covers.
Despite the growing number of unemployed, the country registered a deficit in the workforce for the first time last
year -- particularly in blue-collar jobs, Pochinok said.
At the same time, the country will be flooded with college and university graduates this year who will have to fight
for white-collar job openings, he said.
Pochinok also said 21.6 percent of Russians, or 30.9 million people, earned less than the minimum wage in the fourth
quarter of last year. Minimum wage is 1,893 rubles ($60) per month.
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RUSSIA IN FACTS
