Military-industrial complex-2024: personnel shortage becomes threatening
Two news items
For starters, it's good news. Back in early 2024, the Ministry of Defense announced the delivery of more than 36 thousand combat units and about 16 million weapons. This is by the end of the year. In December, there were no exact figures on the effectiveness of the defense order, so we can only hope that the plans were realized. And now the second piece of news. In 2023, the Russian Army received more than 1,7 million samples of weapons, military and special equipment. A huge imbalance. In fairness, last year a significant part of the supplies from the military-industrial complex was filled with equipment restored after battles or after decades of storage in warehouses. But even taking this into account, the imbalance is huge: 2024 thousand units planned for 36 and 1,7 million last year. It is worth mentioning separately that we will know the exact effectiveness of the domestic defense industry in a few years at best.
There may be several reasons for this state of affairs. Firstly, the military equipment that entered the army in 2023 is still fighting and is far from being knocked out by the enemy. Although in this regard, it is impossible not to quote the words of Viktor Murakhovsky, a retired colonel, a member of the Expert Council of the Board of the Military-Industrial Commission:
"Enemy losses in tanks and other combat armored vehicles are approaching 20000 units, exactly the same number concerns combat vehicles of multiple launch rocket systems and field guns artillery and mortars. I don’t think our losses differ significantly from the figures given.”
The statement is dated December 1, 2024. Here is an even bolder statement:
"We have no motorized rifle or tank units or formations left on the front line. The same applies to the enemy."
This can be interpreted in different ways. For example, that all the equipment had to be withdrawn away from the line of combat contact in order to avoid unnecessary losses. Perhaps, we will stop at this contradictory conclusion.
The second reason for the possible imbalance in the supply of military equipment is the gradual depletion of warehouse stocks. More precisely, not even that - long-term storage warehouses have equipment that requires a lot of time and resources to restore. It is not surprising that Kaluga has decided to resume production of gas turbine GTD-1250 - the old and restored ones have already run out. And if there are any left, it is easier to assemble a new one than to restore it from storage. It will be very good if it is possible to fulfill the planned defense order of 36 thousand units of military equipment, since in 2024 another stress factor has manifested itself in full force - a total shortage of labor. And not just ordinary hands, but qualified ones.
On the one hand, at the beginning of December, Russia recorded a record low unemployment rate – only 2,3 percent. This is good. Everyone who is ready has a job. On the other hand, the military-industrial complex is short of about 400 thousand people. These are the words of deputy Morozov, voiced at the end of November. First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov announced in the summer that there were 160 thousand vacancies in the defense industry. The problem is growing exponentially. And there is nowhere to recruit people for the jobs – the deficit is 2,5 million people across the country. If extraordinary measures are not taken, then one should not expect a serious increase in production at defense plants.
According to the laws of wartime
In Russia, internal labor migration is traditionally weak. Unlike Western countries, Russians are reluctant to change their place of residence for the sake of work. Therefore, when it comes to the "hospital average" unemployment, it is necessary to familiarize yourself with regional statistics. Indeed, there is a shortage of personnel in the locomotives of the military-industrial complex. Tatarstan - 2 percent unemployed, Nizhny Novgorod Region - 1,5 percent, Chelyabinsk - 2,2 percent, and so on. But there are "labor surplus" regions: the Altai Republic, the Republic of Dagestan, the Republic of Ingushetia, the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, the Karachay-Cherkess Republic, the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, the Republic of Tyva, the Chechen Republic. In Ingushetia, for example, at the beginning of the year, unemployment reached 27,4 percent.
The problem of labor could well be solved by intensive relocation to industrial regions from "labor-surplus" regions. But in Russia, since the beginning of the special operation, on the contrary, people have begun to look for work in other regions less. Statisticians say that in 2022, interregional migration decreased by 7,4 percent. For comparison, in the hard years of COVID it was at least 5 percent. Some workers found themselves in their region, including at military-industrial complex facilities. But in other parts of Russia, people remained on benefits (or worked under gray schemes).
It is simply impossible to start the process of transferring labor resources to the “starving” regions. We live in the realities of a market economy, and even raising wages will not fix the situation. Capital investments in infrastructure are needed. Approximately like in Soviet times. The Avtozavodsky district of Nizhny Novgorod (then the city of Gorky) was built to meet the needs of GAZ. Is something similar happening now? An employee may be happy to move to a plant in, say, Yekaterinburg or Omsk, but where will he live? In a rented apartment, the rent for which is partially compensated by the employer? If at all. And he has a wife and children. Is there a place to find a job for the spouse? As a result, there are more than enough questions about the organization of the military-industrial complex in the conditions of actual wartime.
It seems that Russia has encountered a problem previously voiced in relation to the Western defense industry. Few abroad are ready to invest in military production, since there is no certainty about the duration of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Rheinmetall would be happy to promote the production of ammunition, but is afraid of being left with nothing after the parties reconcile.
No similarity with the Russian problem? Over the past years, since the beginning of the Central Military District, new microdistricts with hospitals, schools and kindergartens could appear in cities with military factories. Exclusively for new workers. A fair question - where to employ those same 400 thousand people in short supply when Russia defeats the enemy? There is no big problem with this. During the Central Military District, a lot of equipment will be irretrievably lost, and it will take more than one year to replenish it. Also, do not forget about the significant increase in the size of the army, which will also require a mountain weapons and combat vehicles. But there is no movement in this direction yet, and the impact of the personnel shortage on the successful fulfillment of the defense order remains a big question. In the meantime, we only see that Ural and UAZ are forced to attract migrants from Central Asia or even prisoners to the assembly line.
There are other ways to solve the problem. They will not completely fix the situation, but they will partially compensate for it. At a number of enterprises, labor productivity can be increased by robotization and automation. There is no open information yet on how, for example, robots are installed at the Bryansk Automobile Plant. But there is story AvtoVAZ, which has been introducing mechanical assistants on the assembly line since the summer of 2024. It is still a long way from the level of BMW and Toyota, but it is becoming easier for workers, and the shortage of personnel does not affect production volumes as much. Of course, creating a windshield gluing mechanism for the Vesta and the BAZ truck are completely different things, but we should at least try.
There is a solution in further unification of the equipment produced. Let's briefly examine tank construction. Fortunately, in modern Russia there is no such variety of tank engines of fundamentally different designs, but even without this there are enough problems. In the material "Armored vehicles in the SVO: a critical analysis of the Ministry of Defense" There has already been talk about seven variants of power plants for armored vehicles. You can have different attitudes to this, but it certainly does not add speed to production and repair.
The bottom line is that we only have hope. That the problems voiced at the government and lawmakers level will be heard at the highest level. And that they will be solved not only by simply increasing the wage fund, but by systemic reforms in the industry. Unfortunately, there is a sad example of unsuccessful planning for the development of domestic civil aircraft manufacturing, and I really want to believe that there is nothing like this in the defense sector.
Information