And Who's Going To Work?

There may not be enough workers for the new Belarusian factories.

Next year, the Belarusian authorities are focusing on investments as the driver of economic growth. The government is preparing to spend billions of dollars to create dozens of new production facilities and modernise old ones. However, there is one problem, which will not be solved by any billions of investments. While the government is making plans on how to set up new factories, the old ones are increasingly understaffed, writes the ‘Belarusians and the Market’ website.

A giant refrigerator plant and modernising the cement industry are among the most ambitious projects. A second Pulp and Paperboard Mill and the opening of a bus manufacturing plant. The start of construction of a giant refrigerator plant and the launch of 60 new dairy farms. And also, if we are very lucky and Russia is generous with a new loan, a second nuclear power plant.

In general, the Belarusian authorities have an answer to the question of where to get money. You can ask Russia for money. And, maybe, Russia won't even be greedy and will give something.

However, the other problem can't be solved so easily. And even Russia will not help in solving it. Because you can borrow money, buy machines, build factories. But new people will not be born at once.

According to the European statistics, up to half a million Belarusians could leave for the EU alone for the last four years. And there is also Russia. And at least until 2020, the scale of labour emigration of Belarusians to Russia was much higher than the scale of emigration to the EU.

‘While one part of the population is leaving the country and another part is aging and retiring, they are being replaced by a relatively small younger generation,’ wrote BEROC academic director Leu Lvouski in a study published recently.

Unemployment in Belarus has fallen to a record low of 3 per cent. The number of employed in the economy has decreased by 32.5 thousand people over the past year. The total number of vacancies is growing and is now about 170 thousand.

The best thing the Belarusian authorities could come up with to solve the problem of staff shortage was to cancel restrictions on paying pensions to working pensioners. We do have a lot of pensioners. But pensioners have natural age limits to keep working. Those who could work were working before. As of the beginning of September, every fifth Belarusian pensioner continued to work.

Therefore, the problem of staff shortage cannot be solved by pensioners. And the Belarusian authorities have no other options to solve it.

A couple of years ago, the problem of state-owned enterprises was the excessive number of employees. Now even those factories, which exist, have to literally hunt for heads. So it is possible to build new factories. But there will be no one to work at them.

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