In The Russian Federation, Graduates Of Technical Schools Massively Refuse To Work By Specialty

Despite the Kremlin's call to fill the factories.

Graduates of Russian technical schools are in no hurry to follow the calls of the authorities and find jobs at factories that lack workers: in 2024, almost 40% of Russians who received specialized secondary education (SVE) decided to work outside their profession. This follows from the statistical compilation "Indicators of Russian Education" by the National Research University Higher School of Economics, which has been reviewed by Vedomosti.

At the same time, the overall employment rate among graduates of secondary vocational education turned out to be slightly lower than among those who graduated from a higher education institution - 82% vs. 84%, respectively. The unemployment rate among Russians with higher education in 2022-2024 decreased from 2.6% to 1.5%, and among SPE graduates - from 3 to 2%. At the same time, in 2024, Russians aged 25-34 with higher education looked for a job for an average of 5.3 months, while former students of technical schools - 5.2.

The lower percentage of employment in the specialty among graduates of vocational education may be due to disappointment in the chosen profession: it is not so easy for schoolchildren to decide on it in the ninth grade, says analyst of the Institute for Complex Strategic Studies Elena Kiseleva. In addition, college graduates may continue to study in higher education or get drafted into the army, which does not allow them to find a job immediately after graduation, the expert added.

The main reason for work not in the specialty - difficulties with employment of underage students, lack of experience and restrictions with the placement of jobs associated with harmful or hazardous working conditions, said a researcher at the Center for Continuing Education Economics RANEPA Elena Lomteva. According to her, for some students, especially those from rural areas, financial stability becomes a priority, as a result of which they find jobs that do not require special education but provide the necessary income. Moreover, until recently, VET programs were poorly adapted to market needs, said Ludmila Ivanova-Shvets, associate professor at the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry's basic department "Human Resource Management" at the Russian Economic University.

In June 2024, Putin demanded that the government train about 1 million specialists in working professions by 2028 to solve the problem of staff shortages in industry. After that, Russian schoolchildren began to refuse to transfer to the 10th grade, recommending to continue their studies in college, and also reduced by almost 50 thousand the number of paid places in universities. Minister of Education of the Russian Federation Sergey Kravtsov reported that in 2025, a record number of schoolchildren - about 1.3 million people - were sent to vocational education institutions in the last 50 years. At the same time, the total number of students in colleges and technical schools reached 3.9 million.

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