Alexander Zhukov's address:
Ladies and gentlemen,
Last year's government measures to ease the aftermath of the global financial crisis, which Mr Sechin spoke about in detail, have improved the employment situation, as the dynamics of its basic indices show.
The number of people in work increased by 3.4 million in the first nine months of the year, from 67.7 million to 71.1 million in September.
The same period saw unemployment fall by over 1.8 million: from 6.8 million (9.2% of the economically active population) in January to 5 million, or 6.6%, in September. General unemployment reached the pre-crisis level of October 2008.
Registered unemployment fell from 2.295 million at the end of February to 1.619 million at the end of September – a decline of over 570,000.
From the start of the year, as unemployment falls and employers increasingly need to fill vacancies (there were 1.235 vacancies at the end of September), a trend towards the relaxation of the tension coefficient (registered unemployment per vacancy) on the labour market became apparent. It fell from 3.1 to 1.5.
The total number of people working part-time as a result of management policy and those on compulsory leave has fallen by over a million since the end of February to 611,000. It should be noted that this is the case across the board.
Because the government monitors regional labour markets on a weekly basis, we have more recent statistics for these fundamental economic indicators through to mid-December. Overall unemployment has remained unchanged at 5 million since September, while registered unemployment fell to 1.544 million, and part-time employment to 563,000. A certain rise in the unemployment level over the last three weeks, by 20,200 from November 24 to December 15, was due to a seasonal factor active every autumn and winter.
The situation on the labour market improved largely due to regional employment programmes, which performed well in 2009. The federal government and the regions continued to implement them in 2010.
Under these programmes, within nine months, 1.223 million people had been engaged in public works or given temporary jobs. 96,000 people at risk of dismissal had received vocational retraining. 60,000 vocational school-leavers had joined work-experience schemes, which helped them secure jobs. The measures in place to support self-employment, thus creating new jobs, helped 136,500 people. Roughly 8,000 unemployed people received temporary jobs elsewhere in the country, and over 3,000 unemployed people with limited abilities found jobs and were given properly equipped work stations.
Over 1.4 million permanent and temporary jobs were created through regional programmes within nine months. 41.2 billion roubles were allocated to these programmes in 2010, including federal grants of 38.5 billion roubles.
Budget funds also went towards helping improve the employment situation at the AVTOVAZ and the Molot Machine Building Plant in Vyatskie Polyany.
Given the positive impact these regional programmes had on employment in 2009-2010, the government and the regions will continue to implement them in 2011. A decision to that effect will be passed within the year. Programme priorities will undergo significant change, including regarding the specific measures they contain and the number of people involved.
27.8 billion roubles will be allocated to these programmes from the federal budget, compared to 43.7 billion in 2009 and 39.5 billion in 2010. These funds are ring-fenced in the 2011 federal budget.
I would like to highlight that the government is working to improve the employment situation in close partnership with its partners in society. The tripartite commission regulating social and labour relations, which brings together the government, trade unions and employers, monitors the employment situation in the regions, assessing it on a monthly basis. This oversight will continue – in particular, given the general agreement between national trade union associations, employer organisations and the federal government for the period 2011-2013, which will be signed on December 29.
The economic restructuring of single-industry towns has been a key government anti-crisis priority throughout 2010.
State support for these towns is not merely aimed at stabilising the situation but at guaranteeing their continuing social and economic development. That was why stress was laid not on supporting employment in inefficient core companies but on restructuring them, creating alternative jobs, and diversifying the urban economy to put an end to this dependence on one industry.
The federal budget for 2010 allocated a total of 27 billion roubles for these goals through the government anti-crisis programme, specifically 10 billion in interbudgetary transfers to implement investment projects, another 10 billion as a budget loan, and 5 billion as additional money for the housing reform fund.
Systemic, long-term measures include the promotion of crucial investment projects within the framework of comprehensive investment plans to modernise single-industry towns. There are 50 projects for 35 towns from the initial list. 10 billion roubles in allocations (the entire planned sum) have been transferred for these purposes, in addition to budget loans of 5.6 billion roubles (56% of the planned amount).
These projects are expected to create 200,000 new jobs and 190 billion roubles or more in private investment by 2015.
Short-term measures include additional steps to improve the jobs market, the promotion of municipal programmes for the development of small and medium-sized businesses, and the housing reform fund's activities.
Noticeably, extra measures to reduce tension on the labour market in single-industry towns touched 380,000 people living in all 335 of these towns.
A gradual reduction of registered unemployment in single-industry towns (to 4.5% in 2010, 2.7% in 2011 and below 2% in 2015) is expected as comprehensive government support for the economic modernisation of such towns bears fruit.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The following social welfare measures were taken in 2010 to support our citizens, primarily those on fixed incomes, as part of the implementation of the government's anti-crisis action plan :
1. As of January 1, 2010, pensions were raised dramatically through valorising pension rights acquired before January 1, 2002, taking Soviet-era work records (before January 1, 1991) into account. This amounted to, on average, a sum of 1,090 roubles per pensioner, which boosts the average old-age retirement pension to 7,820 roubles a month.
2. As of January 1, 2010, welfare payments were added to pensions that are below the regional subsistence level.
3. As of April 1, 2010, retirement pensions were increased by another 6.3%. Indexation brought the amount of all pensions closer to valorised pensions. Social pensions increased by 8.8%, and state pensions increased accordingly.
4. As of July 1, 2010, there was an additional 3.4% indexation of social pensions and respective state pensions; and this measure was extended to welfare payments that are linked with the increase of social pensions.
As of October 1, 2010, the average old-age retirement pension amounts to 8,177 roubles a month.
5. Ladies and gentlemen, our teamwork led to the adoption of a federal law extending the deadline to receive one-off payments of up to 12,000 roubles from maternity capital by one year. As of October 1, 2010, more than 840,000 families had made use of this form of state support.
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Housing construction support has proved an effective anti-crisis measure. This industry has a multiplier effect on development in other industries. Experts say that every new construction job produces another eight jobs in 30 related economic sectors. That is why the government pays particular attention to this industry.
Spending maternity capital on this gives solvent housing demand a major impetus.
According to the federal Pension Fund, roughly 258,000 applications had been filed by December 1 to spend maternity capital on new housing. About 62 billion roubles have been transferred following such applications.
Developing refinancing systems for housing mortgage loans is an effective anti-crisis measure to maintain the demand for new housing.
State measures to improve the housing conditions of particular segments of the population, with an emphasis on WWII veterans and the military, are also an impetus to housing construction and the housing market.
As of May 1, 2010, all war veterans who joined the waiting list before March 1, 2005 (28,494 persons) had received new housing.
As of December 1, the number of veterans put on the waiting list after March 1, 2005, was approaching 165,000. Of these, 104,100 veterans have already had their housing conditions improved. Federal budget allocations to these ends amounted to 122.3 billion roubles in 2010, and another 10 billion will be allocated in 2011.
The military will receive roughly 52,000 flats in 2010. 92.5 billion roubles have been earmarked for this purpose.
The government has paid particular attention to the affordability of medicines. Prices were galloping in 2009, increasing by a total of 10.8% in outpatient clinics and 16.1% in hospitals. In some regions, mark-ups were as high as 200% due to the number of middlemen.
That was why it was decided to improve state price regulation for essential drugs, in particular through the introduction of the mandatory registration of the manufacturer's ceiling price for such drugs and the elimination of multiple wholesale intermediaries.
The main mission of state price regulation is to stabilise the situation and guarantee transparent price formation to make such drugs affordable.
State regulation not merely stopped prices of essential drugs increasing but even brought them down. By October 2010 prices in clinics had fallen 2.74% and 2.43% in hospitals on average.
It is important to note that it is not only our duty to make drugs affordable but also to guarantee their availability in pharmacies. Despite widespread fears that cheap drugs would vanish from the shelves, the latest information indicates that they account for no less than a half of everything on display in the chemists'.
Ladies and gentlemen,
As you can see from this report, anti-crisis action taken by the government in 2010 was explicitly social in character. All those measures that proved their worth will be continued in 2011. Thank you.