As one of the BRIC countries, Russia is currently experiencing rapid growth in its economy and is expanding into new markets and industries. This new business brings with it a need for workforce training.
Russia’s education system does not currently teach necessary job skills
Russia’s workforce is unique in that there is a high rate of literacy, but the workforce is not adequately trained for available jobs. This lends itself to be a great opportunity for corporate training to enter the market.
Felix Kugel of ManpowerGroup said the following about Russia: “Students and employers agree that graduates entering the workforce are unprepared as business has changed and education has failed to evolve with it.” View the full news release here.
The Russian government has recognized the importance of a skilled workforce. In a recent meeting of the Presidium of the Presidential Council for the Implementation of Priority National Projects and Demographic Policy, the focus was on the issue of training a modern workforce. According to Russia’s Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev: “A priority task is to adapt the content, the forms and the technology of training in the working trades.”
Growth of the IT sector
The Russian IT sector has grown significantly in recent years, following closely behind China and India. However, the average size of Russian IT companies is only between 5 and 10 employees. The government has attempted to stimulate the IT sector by giving IT companies breaks on insurance premiums and taxes (Source: “Government Aims to Stimulate Russia’s IT Sector“). Their hope is that these incentives will allow the companies to hire and train more employees.
By having government support to address the workforce education problems in the country, Russia is a great place for the corporate training market to grow alongside its evolving economy.
