The shortage of personnel is the main barrier to the development of the Russian economy, said the head of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiulina, speaking in the State Duma. "We carefully monitor the financial condition of the companies and see that most of them are quite stable. Here there is no other way but to increase labor productivity to overcome the shortage of personnel. And staff shortages, not the cost of credit or even lack of capacity, are now the most important barrier to economic growth. And the enterprises themselves are talking about it”, Nabiulina said.
At the same time “not everything is so smooth“ with production capacity, she noted. “In some industries, there is almost no spare equipment left, even obsolete equipment, for example in mechanical engineering. Since the demand there is very high, and this stimulates investments in the machine-building complex, they have grown significantly. In any case, however, updating and expanding production assets takes time”, added the head of the Central Bank.
Physical opportunities to rapidly increase production in Russia are now limited. “The shortage of labor resources was increasing everywhere. Unemployment fell to 2.5% by mid-year. Now, according to yesterday's data, it is already 2.4%. This means that the physical ability to ramp up production quickly is now extremely limited,” she said.