Mikhail Mishustin holds a strategic session on the labour market forecast and supply strategy

Mikhail Mishustin: "Last year, we produced a detailed seven-year forecast. The forecast shows that demand is growing, especially for skilled technical workers - electricians, foundry workers, and welders. Demand for plant and machine operators, and other skilled industrial staff, already outstrips supply several times over."

Mikhail Mishustin's opening remarks:

Good afternoon, colleagues.

Today, we'll be looking in detail at our projected labour needs and the measures we are taking to supply the economy with the workforce it requires.

This forecast is a key tool that helps us to understand what specialists we will need over the coming years, and in what numbers, to meet today's challenges. It also provides the foundation for the steps we need to take to balance the labour market and align education in colleges, technical schools, and universities with market needs.

Last year, we produced a detailed seven-year forecast. A breakdown by region, industry, profession, and qualification level has been built using information from hundreds of thousands of companies. A similar forecast was also compiled for 500 enterprises that are the key players driving our national technological leadership projects.

The forecast shows that demand is growing, especially for skilled technical workers - electricians, foundry workers, and welders. Demand for plant and machine operators, and other skilled industrial staff, already outstrips supply several times over.

It's vital that we take this into account when shaping workforce training structures in each region.

The President has strongly emphasised the need to tailor vocational education so that it responds more effectively to modern challenges and can keep evolving in line with advances in the economy, technology, and science.

That, in turn, calls for a review of curricula and teaching methods, as well as additional training and retraining for teachers at all levels.

A wide range of activities has been developed as part of the Personnel national project.

We are rolling out a unified career guidance model for schoolchildren across the country. Last academic year, it reached over 8.5 million children.

Helping young people choose their educational path and place of work is essential.

To that end, a pilot routing mechanism was launched a year ago in 11 regions - guiding students from school to college, from college to university, and then on to the workplace.

To give students a clearer picture of their prospects, career opportunities, and salaries, we have created a National Ranking of Vocational Education Institutions by Employability. We have also drawn up a single list of more than 200 of the most in-demand professions, based on input from major employers in the regions.

In today's environment, labour productivity and the development of new technologies, including artificial intelligence, are playing an increasingly important role. Our workforce training must reflect that.

Professional standards and educational programmes need to be sufficiently flexible and adaptive. That is why we are building collaboration between colleges, universities, and employment centres - so that they can respond quickly and in a coordinated way to the needs of businesses, improve their programmes, and, of course, take into account what future employees are looking for.

The system we have created is designed to provide our industries with the specialists they need.

We now have a clear overall picture of the labour market. We see, for example, that demand for blue-collar jobs will remain strong, and will increase for roles requiring skills in modern information technology.

With potential challenges in mind, it is important that we assess the mechanisms for managing employment structure - their quality and efficacy.

Russia's overall economic growth and social progress depend to a large extent on the effective implementation of the Personnel national project. Achieving the national development goals set by the head of state is crucial.

That calls for close, coordinated work between federal agencies, regional authorities, industry-specific technology development organisations, vocational education providers, and labour and employment bodies.