Russia’s Labor-Starved Economy Pays Price of Putin’s Call-Up
- Worker shortage spreads after mobilization to fight in Ukraine
- Teenagers, women and even convicts employed in bigger numbers
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The call-up of men to fight in Ukraine has left labor so scarce in Russia that entire industries are in distress.
Two months after the Kremlin announced the mobilization in late September, a record depletion of workers is fast spreading across a country already hobbled by an aging and shrinking population and with unemployment near the lowest ever. A study by the Gaidar Institute in Moscow in November found that up to a third of Russian industry may face a deficit of personnel because of the draft, the most severe crunch since 1993.