Russia plans to lay off part of its civil servants in 2020 as part of a major public administration reform, First Deputy Finance Minister Tatyana Nesterenko said on Monday, September 23.
Without the reform, civil servants will have low salaries, she explained. The government will not be able to raise them much – only by the inflation rate at best. To raise their salaries to the market average, the government will have to spend an additional RUR 100 bln ($1.6 bln) a year. The only way out is to optimize their number; those civil servants who keep their jobs will have higher salaries.
The number of officials will be reduced in two stages: next year, part of the core staff will be laid off from the federal government bodies; the number of jobs in this sector will decrease by 10%. In the regions, only 5% of officials will go in 2020, but in 2021, their number will be reduced by 15%. At the second stage, a structural modernization of civil service will be carried out, leading to a further reduction in the number of officials. As a result, according to Tatyana Nesterenko, small front offices will replace large administrative entities.