Russians are losing work as their country veers into recession, with about 127,000 people fired so far this year, First Deputy Labor Minister Sergei Velmyaikin said Wednesday, a news report said.
In late February, fellow Deputy Labor Minister Tatyana Blinova said Russia's rising unemployment was due to both the economic crisis and the seasonal layoffs typical of February and March. Russia's economy, weighed down by falling oil prices and Western sanctions, is expected to contract by at least 3 percent this year.
The total number of unemployed could rise to a maximum of 2.4 million over the course of the current crisis, news agency TASS quoted Blinova as saying.
The estimate of 127,000 for the year was based on a monitoring of staffing in large organizations with more than 500 employees, Velmyaikin said.
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