The dynamics of growth in average wages in Russia may slow down sharply

Thus, in Moscow, the average monthly accrued wages of employees of organizations (as this statistical indicator is officially called) amounted to 128,329 rubles in July 2023 (these are the latest available official data). And here, I believe, many will be surprised, because for a considerable number of people this is a lot of money. Neither they themselves nor their loved ones receive these almost 130 thousand rubles a month, but here the average salary is like this. It even turns out to be a shame somehow.

The solution to this is simple, and there is really nothing to be surprised about. Yes, yes, we are talking about average wages. That is, if one receives 1 million rubles a month, and the other 100 thousand rubles, then on average they receive as much as 550 thousand rubles. And in Moscow, quite a lot of people have not just high, but very high salaries. It’s their sky-high amounts that are successfully averaged with others, much more modest…

The Moscow average salary is even higher than in Magadan, where in July 2023 it amounted to 124,968 rubles. But still, the leading region is the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug with an average salary of 144,786 rubles. After all, oil and gas are still our everything.

Having named the regions with the highest wages, we simply have to name the regions with the lowest wages. These are the republics of the North Caucasus Federal District, where on average in July 2023 wages were at the level of 30–40 thousand rubles. According to Rosstat, the lowest average salary in the country was in July 2023 in Ingushetia – 30,563 rubles. The average salary in the country at this time was 71,419 rubles.

Having an idea of ​​the level of wages, it is also important to understand what is happening with the dynamics of this important indicator. The national average for July wages was 13.9% higher compared to last year’s same figure. This is a big increase. You say: what about inflation? And you’ll be absolutely right—inflation eats up rising wages. Therefore, it is important to consider what happens to the level of real wages, that is, those that take into account price increases. Of course, this raises the question of the reliability of official inflation figures. However, we have no other statistics, so we will be content with what we have.

The national average real wage in July 2023 was 9.2% higher than the same period last year. This is also a very high figure. Once again, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that inflation has already been taken into account here. Cool?

Yes, I understand, again many will say that they have not seen such an increase in wages in their wallets and pockets. And they will probably be right. But again, let me remind you that we are talking about average indicators. And therefore, such a seemingly very large increase in wages is quite possible.

But here’s what you should pay attention to: if real wages in the country as a whole increased, as noted above, over the year by more than 9%, then gross domestic product (everyone knows GDP) increased in the first half of 2023 compared to the first half of the year 2022 by only 1.6%. It turns out that GDP is growing much more slowly compared to how wages are growing. Question: is this normal? I will say this: for now, given the fact that our workers have traditionally been significantly underpaid, this is still normal. However, this cannot continue for long, since wages are paid from new added value – the same GDP, the growth rate of which is several times lower compared to the rate of increase in average wages. Therefore, you should be prepared for the fact that the dynamics of wage growth will soon slow down sharply. In the meantime, let’s rejoice at such positive statistics on wage growth.

As for the regions, the picture is more or less clear. What about the industries? Who are the leaders and who are the outsiders in terms of salaries? So, it is not at all surprising that the highest average wage in Russia in July 2023 was recorded in oil and natural gas production – 197,799 rubles. And the lowest? No, you won’t guess, or rather, many could guess, assuming that in education. This would be an almost exact answer – 34,580 rubles in July 2023. Almost, but not exact. Because the July salary in education is not indicative – holidays! A clear proof of this is the fact that if we take the average salary in education for January–July 2023, that is, for seven months, then it was much higher than the July figure and amounted to 54,026 rubles per month.

But it turns out that there is an anti-leader industry in terms of average wages, where in July 2023 it amounted to 32,831 rubles, which is more than two times less than the national average monthly wage and more than six times lower than what they receive in oil and natural gas production. This is clothing production.

But financiers and insurers, who are popularly considered “rich Pinocchios,” are not in first place in terms of average monthly wages, because they do not reach the earnings of oil and gas workers. In the finance and insurance sector, the average monthly salary was 157,549 rubles. However, there is another industry besides oil and gas workers, whose representatives receive more than representatives of finance and insurance. I am sure that not everyone will give the correct answer to the question of who it could be. And the correct answer is – these are air and space transport workers who had an average salary in July 2023 of 168,091 rubles.

Now about those industries where wages are growing the fastest. The fact that couriers are fine in this regard, I think, does not surprise anyone. And this is true: in July 2023, wages for postal and courier representatives were on average 27.1% higher than a year ago. An enviable result. Although the average salary in the industry is not at all high: 47,385 rubles in July 2023. I will assume that the average salary is somewhat underestimated because of postal workers, because the situation with couriers is clearly better. It seems that Covid is almost over, which stimulated the salaries of couriers, and their growth continues.

Representatives of the production of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers have an even more outstanding result precisely in terms of the dynamics of growth in the level of wages. In this industry, the average nominal salary increased over the year by more than 30%, amounting to 74,163 rubles in July 2023.

Now such an important question: has the observed obvious increase in average wages (although not everyone feels it) in any way influenced the solution to such a serious problem as differentiation of the population by income, or not? Yes, there is some progress here. The so-called funds ratio, which shows how many times the average income of the wealthiest population exceeds the average income of the least wealthy (10 percent groups, the so-called “deciles”) are taken, decreased by the end of 2022 to 13.8 times. Before this, for many years, income differentiation in our country was 14–16 times. A small reduction, but we still note that this is a positive shift. The statistically recorded increase in wages certainly played a role in this. However, taking into account, as noted above, the unimportant prospects for continued rapid growth of wages, it can be predicted that the problem of strong differentiation of the population by income will continue in the foreseeable future. This means that social problems in Russia are still relevant and the importance of short-term and extremely unstable positive changes should not be exaggerated. Moreover, even they are clearly not felt everywhere and not by everyone.