“We will do everything possible so that people do not find themselves unemployed…We will help people to requalify and find a new workplace,” Golodets told journalists.
According to the deputy prime minister there are currently 873,000 people officially registered as unemployed versus a stated 1.3 million available jobs. She added that there was currently no growth in either official or unofficial unemployment rates.
On January 23, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said that the country needed to brace for an increase in the unemployment rate and that people would need to adapt to circumstances.
According to the Russian Federal State Statistics Service, in January 2014 the amount of unemployed people in the country stood at 4.2 million, an unemployment rate of 5.6 percent.
Russia is currently in an economic downturn, partially as a result of the ruble losing half its value against the dollar and the euro since mid-2014, and a recent dramatic drop in oil prices.
