Rosstat: 2.5% or 690 thousand employees received wages at the minimum wage and below in 2021

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Wages at the level of the minimum minimum wage (minimum wage) or below are received by 2.5 percent of Russians working in large and medium-sized enterprises. The smallest share of such workers live in the resource-extracting regions of the North and the Far East, and the largest – in the subjects of the North Caucasus Federal District, Izvestia reports, citing Rosstat data.

Almost 690 (689.8) thousand Russians received salaries in the amount of the minimum wage and below in 2021. Rosstat linked this indicator to underemployment of workers. The department also named the number of violations of the law when paying for labor: their number can reach no more than 0.2 percent of 2.5 percent of cases.

At the same time, in 2019, the share of Russians receiving wages below or at the level of the all-Russian minimum wage was 2.9 percent, or 775 thousand people. Rosstat stressed that such a study is carried out every two years. In 2021, the minimum wage is 12,792 rubles, and from January 1, 2022, it will increase to 13,890 rubles.

According to the Labor Code, an employee's salary for the month in which he fulfilled the full standard of working time cannot be lower than the minimum wage. Among 2.5 percent of Russians with a salary at this level, 1.4 percent are part-time employees, 0.9 percent are employees with an income at the minimum wage level.

In addition, workers included in 2.5 percent of cases, hypothetically, can work in several organizations and be counted in only one, and in total receive more minimum wages. In 2021, just over 33 million Russians worked at large and medium-sized enterprises. The total labor force in the country reaches 75.1 million people, and the employed – 71.2 million.

Earlier, Russia found a new way to combat unemployment. From 2022, employers will be able to receive three minimum wages for hiring young employees under the age of 30.