Rustem Khamitov: "People should be paid decent wages"

On August 14, Rustem Khamitov chaired a meeting of the Government of Bashkortostan. The issues of wages increase in major sectors of economy and social sphere of the republic were discussed, the press service of the head of the region informs.

Rustem Khamitov said that "it is necessary to issue from the overall situation in the country, which is complicated by a certain slowdown in economic growth, a drop in production in some sectors and sanctions against Russia".

“The consequences of these processes affect the economic situation in our republic, including the income of residents. We see that in the first half of the year, real wages, unfortunately, almost did not grow. Nominally, they exceeded 23.5 thousand rubles, but adjusted for inflation actually remained at the same level as a year ago”, the head of the republic said. “Over the past three years, real wages increased by 12 percent in the republic. It's not much. Last year we remained among the third and fourth dozen in the Russian Federation on average monthly wage. We are in the top ten regions of Russia on macroeconomic performance, on the level of gross regional product, but on such important and socially significant indicator as wages - we are in the third and fourth dozen. In the Volga Federal District we are in the fifth place after Tatarstan, Perm, Samara and Nizhny Novgorod Regions.”

In his opinion one of the reasons for this situation is that the wages received by rural residents constitute a considerable part in the average wage figure.

“Almost 40 percent of our population lives in rural areas. Wages in rural areas are almost two times lower than that paid in the cities. Bashkortostan is in the third place in Russia after the Krasnodar Territory and Rostov Region in number of people employed in agriculture. We should ensure that labour productivity will grow in agriculture each year. So that villagers will not use obsolete forms of labour, will begin to apply modern equipment and technology, and most importantly – profitable ones. So that it will allow them receiving decent wages”, Rustem Khamitov said.

Assessing the situation in other branches, the head of the republic said that it is "also non-uniform. As for the public sector, last year the republic worked well as part of the "May" presidential decrees and reached all the benchmarks provided by "roadmaps". Moreover, the growth of wages in education and health care spheres was twice as much the average republican wage growth. Another situation was in the real economy, which accounts for two-thirds of the republican payroll. Last year, the average wages of workers in the economy increased by 4.5 percent and amounted to 22.5 thousand rubles, which was below the rate of average wage growth in the republic by nearly six percent. Rates of growth were even lower in construction, wholesale and retail trade. Why there was no a pay raise there? Probably because trends of so called "gray", "black" schemes are still strong when people are given salaries in "envelopes", and so on."

Rustem Khamitov believes that to improve the situation with wages "we must use all possible mechanisms and tools, open new marketable cost-effective productions, create highly productive and hence highly paid jobs. This problem will not be resolved by itself".