MOSCOW, December 10, 22:49 /ITAR-TASS/. The Economic Development Ministry has worsened the forecast for the growth of Russia’s unemployment rate from 5.7 percent to 5.8 percent in 2013 and from 5.7 percent to 5.9 percent in 2014, Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach told reporters early this month.
“Initially, we forecasted a 5.7 percent growth rate for 2013. Now, we have raised the indicator to 5.8 percent, which means another 100,000 jobless over a year. We expect the unemployment rate to rise to 5.9 percent in 2014, which means another 100,000 unemployed,” he said.
In his words, the reviewed employment forecast was “the minimum estimate of the unemployment growth. The indicators may be higher.”
According to Oleg Zasov, the director of the Ministry’s Department of Macroeconomic Forecasts, the current developments on the labour market are demonstrating stronger negative trends in the economy. “The economy has entered a stage when a periodic negative decline in growth is getting more intensive,” Zasov said.
“If we look at the labor market, we can see that unemployment started growing in the beginning of the year. Moreover, the unemployment growth has been accompanied by a drop in the number of vacancies since the middle of 2013. Now, we can try to stimulate the demand in order to get rid of the decrease,” he said.