Monday, 23 may, Rosstat reported about the new sharp falling of incomes of Russians. According to the statistical Agency, real disposable incomes in April compared to the same period in 2015 (the so-called annual terms), fell by 7.1%. And if you look from January through April, the decline in real income was 4.7%.
Note that the impoverishment of the population in Russia has accelerated. Rosstat earlier reported a decrease in annual real income of Russians in March 2016 by 1.8% in the first quarter by 3.9%.
That citizens have less real money, evidenced by the drop in retail trade turnover. In April at constant prices it decreased by 4.8% compared to the same period last year. In January-April, the turnover declined by 5.2%, amounting to of 8.68 trillion. RUB
However, unemployment is not growing. According to Rosstat, in April it decreased by 0.1 percentage points to 5.9 per cent of the economically active population. In March, the unemployment rate increased by 0.2 percentage points. In terms of numbers of officially registered unemployed of 4.5 million people.
To influence the situation, the government can not. During a new crisis on the labour market, the Cabinet resorted to the same measures that were used in 2008-2009. So, the Ministry of labor has begun to implement a programme of employment support, on which the regions in the Federal budget was reserved to 5.2 billion rubles. Of these, 3.9 billion has been spent already in 2015, but at the end of the year the audit chamber has warned that tangible results of the program for retraining laid-off employees, which started to be applied in most regions, to no avail.
Recall: in February , the Minister of labour and social protection Maxim Topilin in an interview with NTV television said that in 2015 the number of Russians with incomes below the subsistence minimum increased by three million people to 19 million, of which 60-70% are families with children. Topilin optimistic then made it clear that the “bottom” of falling incomes achieved, and the reduction in real wages of Russians in 2016 will amount to only 3-4%. “I think this year will not be as dramatic a fall in real wages. They will be, maybe a little to fall — real wages”, — said the Minister.
And now the operational report of Rosstat showed that Topilin badly miscalculated. Than the growing impoverishment threatens Russia?
— Business in Russia and in the current situation, wants to get more profit, – says doctor of economic Sciences, Professor of the Academy of labour and social relations Andrei Gudkov. For this, he goes off the beaten path: forcing workers to work more, and thus pay them less. But the business is losing strategically: the consumer crisis caused by the decline in real income, leads to investment crisis.
According to the same Rosstat, investment in fixed capital in Russia in I quarter of 2016 decreased by 4.8% yoy. And then starts another causal chain. If no investment — no jobs, but if there is no ground — there is no other way for business to survive, but to enhance the operation.
“SP”: — Why in April of disposable income has fallen so sharply?
— The reasons for this drop are not obvious. But he proves that all the talk that reached the “bottom” of the crisis, are without merit. That is why it is impossible to predict when to stop the reduction of the income of citizens.
The economy rebounded from the “bottom”, GDP should start to grow steadily. With 2015, the profitability of Russian enterprises really grow and it goes in the “plus” of GDP. But the simultaneous reduction of real incomes of citizens plays “minus”. As a result, the total turns out “bash on bash”, and GDP is not moving.
I note, from the point of view of classical Economics, this is a paradoxical situation. Since the growth of profitability, in theory, must inevitably increase consumption.
“SP”: — what does this mean?
— That the situation is not as simple as it seems. And that the current situation is not sustainable. You have to understand: we had a recession, and we are now in the phase of depression. So, this phase may be replaced by either a revival or recession. And the question here is, in my opinion, rests almost exclusively in the investment.
I believe the government should set incentives on income tax, and allow businesses to send the money to their own development. Other sources of investment financing in Russia today, no.
Before the firm took on the development of resources on external financial markets, but now these channels are closed. It remains to deal with self-financing, but it must be profitable.
In addition, you must enter the 9-percent deduction on dividends on the shared objective is abolished from 1 January 2015 tax on dividends, which also accounted for 9%. This would allow the Cabinet to Fund social policies, including programmes to reduce distortions in the labour market.
“SP”: — Why business needs more benefits, why now he does not invest in self-development?
— Now he has no motivation. Business, on the contrary, it’s more profitable to bite off a piece of the action, and drag it over the border. Recall that, according to the company Global Financial Integrity (GFI), for the period from 1994 from Russia to bypass legal regulations withdrawn more than $ 1.341 trillion. This is a huge amount comparable to the GDP of our country.
At the same time in the country we can not achieve the optimal relationship between current consumption and investment — and that 22-25% of GDP. As recently announced by the Minister of economic development Alexei Ulyukayev, this investment in the coming years needs to grow at 7-8% per year, and the level of consumption to stand still — only then we will achieve average annual GDP growth of 4%.
This speaks of the enormous distrust of the Russian business authorities, and in such extreme situations are, oddly enough, employees.
“SP”: — That in this case will happen to unemployment?
— I think unemployment in the near future will not grow. The fact is that to date, a significant number of jobs have already been lost, and people agree to work hard for less money. They are just afraid to lose my job because to get to a new place is extremely difficult.
But this situation has a downside. As soon as the economy begins to improve, and there will be new jobs, we will see a paradoxical rise in the unemployment rate. Will voluntarily quit a lot of workers, which during the crisis did not pay extra employers — they, finally, will the job opportunity on new, more profitable conditions.
“SP”: — the Impoverishment of the population and the tightening situation in the labour market leads to increased social tensions?
— In my opinion, Yes. This is indicated by the results of the primaries “United Russia”, which took place on may 22. Primaries actually become a rehearsal of the forthcoming elections to the state Duma — they were held in the same schools, where in September it will be possible to vote for deputies. And very symptomatic that the reported violations were reminded of the previous state Duma elections: observers recorded the mass and dumped in the areas of the public sector, and “carousel”. As it turned out on voting in the state Duma may not be well — known members- they failed to confirm his mandate.
This distrust of existing political figures, unquestionably, imply the lack of workers to power.
“SP”: — How it would be possible to rectify the situation in the labour market?
— In the conditions of market economy, the Cabinet did not have such opportunities, especially when the budget is tight.
But now, oddly enough, the government would make sense to focus on the seed. The fact that the Russian economy has pronounced features characteristic of the economies of developing countries. One of them is a significant dependence on agriculture. If in the fall we will have a poor harvest of grain (due to cold spring for that background), I do not exclude that will rise the price of meat (cattle feed feed grain) and even bread. And since the Russian separates the poor from absolute poverty amount to several thousand rubles a month, and just before the riots…
— Do mathematically it turns out that the sharp fall in real incomes occurred in April — said the Chairman of Russian economic society them. SF Sharapova, Professor of international Finance MGIMO Valentin Katasonov. — This version is indirectly confirmed by other events. For example, immediately after the celebration of the Victory Day the Ministry of economic development suddenly said that we need to reduce real pensions and incomes of the population in 2016-2017, in order to intensify the process of accumulation of fixed capital. This has caused strong repercussions in society, it seemed, the Agency chose a very unfortunate moment for scoring such an initiative.
Now this event appears in a different light. Apparently, the Ministry of economic development had already received the April data of Rosstat, and tried to pretend that the continued decline in real incomes of the population — is a prudent step, started for a good purpose. Needless to say, in reality, nothing fixed capital formation against the background of the impoverishment of citizens will not happen.
“SP”: — When to stop the process of impoverishment?
— The “bottom” can not be here. I guess we will see the process of automatic redistribution of income in favor of workers by the growth rates of natural mortality. It’s a cruel mechanism of socio-economic self-regulation, but the government run it.
It is no coincidence that former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said that the need to raise the age for retirement for men and for women to 63 years, and then, it is possible to 65 years. If we proceed from the current situation, the average man retired at age 65, will receive it for only 11 months, then you will die. As a result, savings for the budget will be very substantial, and the pension system de facto exists only on paper.
The economy in this case may indeed receive resources for development and workload of workers. But at what price…
