Labour shortage in agriculture in the agrarian regions of Russia

The article is devoted to the study of the causes and assessment of the scale of the labor shortage in agriculture in the agrarian regions of Russia. To achieve the goal, the authors used a combined approach to determining the labor shortage based on open data from Rosstat, indicators of online recruiting platforms, and expert assessments. The analysis of the availability of labor resources in agriculture indicates a steady downward trend in the number of people employed both in Russia and in the world. Rosstat statistical information on the need for labor resources and data from online recruiting platforms on the ratio of vacancies and resumes confirm the trend of increasing imbalance between the labor demand and supply in the Russian agricultural sector. The share of the need for workers to fill vacant positions has increased by 2.4 times over the past three years and amounted to 10.9% of the total number of personnel in agriculture in 2024. The values of the hh-index for the professional field "Agriculture" against the background of the gap between the expected and offered wage levels also indicate a shortage of applicants. A study of a sample of 26 agrarian regions of Russia revealed relatively labor-surplus agrarian regions (the Krasnodar Territory, regions of the North Caucasus Federal District) and labor-deficit regions (Bryansk, Oryol, Tambov Regions). It was established that the labor shortage in agriculture is caused by a complex set of demographic, economic, social and technological reasons, and it was proved that despite the differentiation of the severity of the labor shortage in the agrarian regions of Russia, an undoubted reserve for increasing the availability of labor resources is the growth of labor productivity based on the technological modernization of agriculture. Other areas for reducing the labor shortage are increasing the attractiveness of the agricultural sector, improving agricultural education, creating and maintaining decent living conditions in rural areas and, in general, further comprehensive modernization of the state agro-food policy.