Kudrin: Russia’s unemployment may jump to 7–8%

PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, Apr 27 (PRIME) -- Russia’s unemployment may jump to 7–8% or even to 10% in the worst scenario amid the coronavirus outbreak, the Audit Chamber’s head Alexei Kudrin told Rossiya 1 television channel on April 25.

“So far, oddly enough, even despite the transition to a very serious stage of the crisis, we have a minimum number of registered unemployed. We have 0.7% unemployed of the economically active population. This is registered. If we take it by other standards, by the standards of the International Labor Organization, we have 4.5% of the unemployed,” Kudrin said.

According to the Federal State Statistics Service, Russia’s unemployment stood at 4.7% in March.

“Unemployment may jump up to 7–8%, in the worst case up to 10% of the economically active population, this is from 6 to 9 million people,” Kudrin said.

Kudrin also proposed introducing food payments to citizens for the period of coronavirus in Russia, or issuing food packages to Russians.

“It is necessary to balance with opportunities and think about the future. Now it’s necessary to put big effort (on overcoming coronavirus), including, perhaps, introducing additional food payments or food packages,” he said.

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