MOSCOW, January 12. /TASS/. Most Russian employers are not planning to index salaries to their employees in 2016, while experts don’t see any economic preconditions for higher welfare of Russian nationals either, say surveys carried out by recruiting companies.
"Seventeen percent of Russian companies are planning to increase salaries to their employees, while most employers (58%) don’t have such plans, and representatives from 25% of companies were undecided," sources from the Superjob employment agency told Tass referring to data of its survey posted on Superjob’s portal.
A total of 1,000 representatives from employing companies were polled in a survey carried out in Russia in mid-December.
According to Superjob, plans to raise salaries were most often heard in December 2010, when almost one third of polled HR managers (32%) shared such plans. The worsening of the economic situation foiled all such plans in December 2015, bringing the number of companies planning to index salaries to a record low of 12%. The share of companies that will index salaries this year will not exceed 18%, agency’s experts say.
"The share of employers planning to raise salaries in 2016 did not exceed 30% at the end of the year [of 2015]. However the year has started with difficulties, with a decline in oil prices, not the way it was expected. That is why this percentage will most likely shrink," Natalya Danina from HeadHunter told Tass.
She also said employers were planning to index salaries by six to seven percent on the average, saying this would not compensate for a real decline in salaries.
Russia’s inflation totaled 0.8% in December 2015 and 12.9% from the year-beginning, Russia’s federal statistics service Rosstat said.
For comparison, consumer prices rose 2.6% in December 2014 and 11.4% from the start of the year.
The best will get more
Experts from the Unity recruiting agency believe the level of salaries will depend on how things will develop in the country and on the economic situation, saying they don’t see precondition for salary growths this year for most workers. According to experts, only the best employees showing high results could expect an increase in their salaries.
"On the whole, salaries on the market have declined five to ten percent as compared with 2014 when the crisis began, and will remain at the same level for the time being," the agency said.
Superjob also forecasts higher salaries only for those occupying key positions and directly influencing company’s incomes.
Opinions of experts differ as to salary offers for newcomers. Superjob’s specialists believe a slight growth in salary offers at the level of three to five percent on a year-on-year basis could be expected for new workers.
Experts from Unity, on the contrary, note that the shrinking of the recruitment market by 20% in 2015 triggered a decline in salaries to their lowest threshold, and more modest salaries than several months ago were offered now to the newly employed workers.
"Many clients hope to get qualified candidates for less money on the market. Practice shows that candidates in search of job are really ready to limit appetites. Employers keep retaining most precious employees," the development director at the Unity recruiting agency, Lyudmila Chernyakova, told Tass.