MOSCOW, December 27. /ITAR-TASS/. This year, Russia’s unemployment level stands at about 5.5 percent, which is two to three times less than that of developed markets under International Labor Organization standards, the government press service said on Friday citing materials summing up the work of the Cabinet in the outgoing year.
However, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev does not believe it is necessary to stick to low unemployment figures at any cost, believing it’s high time for Russia to begin slashing inefficient jobs.
Speaking at a plenary session of the Sochi 2013 forum in September, he said “I believe it is now, during the period that we are going through, that we must make use of our very serious advantage, which is a very low unemployment level as compared with European countries”.
“That is why we must abandon the policy of keeping the employment level at any cost,” he said. At the same time, when making these “painful decisions” to slash inefficient jobs, “it is necessary to take a balanced approach, giving people a possibility to upgrade their skills, to learn a new trade”.
“Possibly some people (and this may be quite a sizable part of the population) will have to change not only their workplace, but also their profession and domicile,” he said.
“But all this has to be done, as it is only in this case that we will get a more up-to-date economic model,” he summed up.