In April of this year, as estimated by Rosstat, the number of unemployed in Russia grew from 3.5 million to 4.3 million people. The unemployment rate increased by 23% compared to March of this year and amounted to 5.8% of the economically active population. However, according to experts, the Rosstat data can be distorted new research methodology in the conditions of the quarantine: the measurement of unemployment for the first time I had to spend mostly in a telephone interview.Yesterday Rosstat released preliminary data about the state of the labor market in April this year, assessing the employment situation after the announcement from March 30 period days. According to the Ministry, last month the number of unemployed in Russia is calculated according to ILO methodology, rose by 23% in comparison with March of this year, the number was 4.6 million instead of 3.5 million people. The unemployment rate in April was 5.8% of the workforce, making it the highest since the start of 2020. Recall that in March the unemployment rate in Russia exceeded the indicator of February, only 0.1 percentage points and amounted to 4.7% of the total workforce. The unemployment rate in April also significantly exceeded (by 21%) the similar indicator for April 2019 (4.7 per cent).Compared to April of 2019, it has increased by 79%. The number of people employed last month was 1.1 million people. Against the background of rising unemployment and recession in most sectors of the economy, according to Rosstat, wages in Russia grew both in nominal and real terms.As the Director of the Centre for labour market studies Higher school of Economics Vladimir Gimpelson, published by Rosstat data raise many questions. “First and foremost I would like to know, how it was carried out a labour force survey in terms of quarantine when in direct contact with interviewers Rosstat to households is difficult. If you have used a different technology, the indicators in time become disparate and in addition, there is the problem of additional biases in the estimates. Obviously, we need a serious explanation,” he says. Further, according to him, in the current version of the data there are some obvious oddities — this refers to the wage growth against the background of reduced economic activity and a significant increase in the number of occupied workplaces of large and medium-sized enterprises. “The last 20 years in Russia their number only decreased, such reversal during the crisis is puzzling,” he says.As explained “Kommersant” in the Rosstat, the figures of the report do obtained in the application of different methods of data collection: the Department has made the main source of information telephone survey which, if allowed regional features of the establishment of the quarantine, was supplemented by personal interviews. However, according to Igor Polyakov of the CMASF, if this factor had impact on the labour market indicators in the report, it is likely that they were more optimistic than in reality. “In the future they may be revised for the worse, so you should wait for the full version of the report, which will be released June 5,” he explains. Thus, according to him, the decline in employment in April by 0.6% on a seasonally adjusted basis was an indication of its crisis and suggests further growth of unemployment.Anastasia Manuylova
