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Comment by temp483332 | Hacker News Reader

I am not in Russia, but I have friends in Russia and visit Russia once a year or so.

From what I see there is no visible economy problems in Russia. Yes, there are some temporary issues in some areas, but generally it's resolved promptly.

There is some decrease of real salary/price increase, but not that significant. Probably situation in EU is worse.

It looks like economic block of Russian government is really professional and know what to do. It's not typical for government in Russia ;)

Also it helps that people are locked in country by western countries, so many stays in country and drives the economy.

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Situation in EU is worse than Russia? In what way?

Possibly the GP means percentage change in the last few years. Europe was high and got worse, Russia is always low and has nothing to loose.

Russia has 2.2% unemployment

Germany has 6.3%

Spain 9.9%

France 7.9%

All while having millions of foreigners/immigrants to support.

Russian unemployment of 2.2% is a bad sign, not a good sign.

For practical purposes, unemployment around 4% means full employment, because there's always a portion of the population not working for some reason: taking time off, too dumb, don't want to work, unable to for reasons of temperment or psychological health, etc. At 4% (as the US has often been in the last few decades) it's really difficult to fill menial roles or unskilled factory jobs with people who know their ass from a hole in the ground.

Russia at 2.2% means many needed positions are going unfulfilled, crippling productivity and planning. It's a sign that the manpower needs of the war are draining productive workers, slowing their own economy at a time when they need more productivity to overcome sanctions and other economic effects.

This number doesn’t take into account immigration. Russian economy is supported by several millions of immigrants from Central Asia (the number much bigger than number of mobilized people). There was low unemployment before the war.

Based on the article, I assume Russian employment is in the military complex?

correct. they've mostly shifted to a militarized economy and all available labor is now gobbled up.

salaries are pretty good, relatively speaking, if you're in engineering or other STEM fields.

excess labor is being drained off to die horribly to drones in eastern Ukraine.

it's kind of like a fat guy starving to death -- for a minute all that weight loss will bring improvements to blood pressure, insulin, etc., but in a couple weeks he's not gonna feel so great

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