Putin instructed to use children's labour to cope with 'staff starvation' in economy - mass media

Russian President Vladimir Putin has instructed to lift restrictions on the labour of minors in order to cope with the shortage of workers in the economy, which the authorities estimate at hundreds of thousands of people. This is reported by pro-Kremlin media.

We are talking about 14-year-old teenagers and factories and plants. According to Putin's idea, they should be allowed to be hired for "temporary work", and the organisations that will hire them are promised certain benefits.

In addition, the hiring of citizens under the age of 18 should be simplified," Putin's instructions say.

According to media reports, citing data from the Gaidar Institute, the staff shortage at Russian factories and plants has reached a record high since 1996.

It is noted that 42% of enterprises in Russia are short of workers.

The problems with personnel sharply intensified after mobilisation, as a result of which 300,000 people went to the front, and up to a million more left the country. The mass recruitment of volunteers and contract workers, the number of which has exceeded 200 thousand people since the beginning of 2023, has become a new blow," the journalists point out.

According to experts, Russia has exhausted its human resources because of the war it has started, and in the near future the country will be short of specialists in various industries.