The unemployment rate jumped last month to the highest since March as companies struggled to raise new capital and cut costs by firing staff, the State Statistics Service in Moscow said Thursday.
The jobless rate rose to 9.2 percent, matching the level reached last March, from 8.2 percent in December, the service said. The median estimate of nine economists in a Bloomberg survey was 8.5 percent.
Unemployment having risen for a fourth month in January threatens to subdue consumer spending and mute a recovery that boosted retail sales last month for the first time in a year as industrial production rose at the fastest rate since April 2008.
“The worst may be over, but a full recovery may be long and unsteady,” ING Groep said in a research note published Feb. 15. “Unemployment remains high and is unlikely to drop in 2010. As public wages are frozen, real wages are unlikely to increase by much. This points to a very gradual recovery in domestic demand, which may even shrink a bit.”
VTB Group said last week that it planned to cut staff and vacant positions by an average of 10 percent as part its program to trim costs.
The economy, which shrank the most on record in 2009, will grow about 3.1 percent this year and may be poised for a “quick return to a growth trajectory” of between 5 percent and 6 percent, the government said in a Dec. 30 report. Retail sales may rise 3.3 percent as inflation slows to between 6.5 percent and 7.5 percent and disposable incomes gain 3 percent, it said.
The pickup in industrial output has failed to boost hiring. Manufacturers cut staff for a 21st consecutive month in January as the rate of job losses was the second slowest in the past 17 months, according to VTB Capital’s Purchasing Managers’ Index.
Employers reduced work forces every month since October 2008 in Russia’s service industries, which saw a sharper pace of job reductions last month, according to VTB.
Wage arrears jumped 15.5 percent in January after a 29.4 percent drop in December. Corporate lending fell 1.2 percent in December from the previous month, while retail loans dropped 0.3 percent, Central Bank data show. The regulator has cut its benchmark interest rate 10 times since April to a record low.
The government deployed 1.2 trillion rubles ($39.8 billion) in stimulus spending last year, helping the jobless rate drop to 7.6 percent in September from a high of 9.4 percent in February.
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