Average salaries in Tatarstan: whose salaries rose this year

The lowest salaries in hotels and public catering

The average monthly salary of workers in the republic’s organisations, including small businesses, according to the Tatarstan Statistics Service from January to May, reached 42,121,7 rubles. Compared to the salary during the analogous period last year (37,896,6 rubles), it is 11,1% more.

One might think that this hike happened due to the low base in five months of the pandemic in 2020. But compared to the pre-COVID-19 period (35,862,8 rubles in January-May 2019), the growth is much bigger — 17,5%.

If we study the data on salaries in types of economic activity, we can notice that specialists working in hospitality and public catering earn the lowest salary in Tatarstan, just 26,582 rubles. Despite the year-on-year growth of 13,7% (from 23,369 rubles), the ratio to the average republican salary is just 63,1%.

Head of GMC Consulting Galina Mashtakova sees the fact that the number of graduates exceeds the number of vacant positions as the reason for the low salaries in these spheres:

“One has to settle for a post below your skills to start developing in this business. The activity of hotels and restaurants is directly linked with the level of the establishment and the city it is in. Now it is more profitable to open low-cost establishments for better traffic, which as a consequence influences the employees’ income. How to raise the salary? Raising the level of the organisation, service quality and price tags.”

“A person without a degree can work as a waiter. Take the cook, this already requires a college degree. However, any restaurant will have more waiters than cooks, and of course, this will influence average salaries. I think this moment influences here quite seriously because a lot of specialists without qualification are employed in these sectors.”

At the same time, Osipova thinks that this sphere has probably recovered after the coronacrisis: “According to our data, during the first seven months this year (January-July included), the number of vacancies in tourism, hotels and restaurants in Tatarstan rose by 150% compared to January-July 2020, that’s to say, the number of vacancies is nearly 2,5 times higher.”

“We see the demand for staff is growing here quite strongly, people are needed, companies are developing,” the interlocutor of the newspaper indicated.

According to her, difficulties with border crossing switched Russians’ attention to domestic tourism. While Tatarstan is quite an attractive region from this point of view. This had a positive impact on the development of tourism and related jobs.

The salary of specialists working in agriculture, forestry, hunting, fishing and fish farming is a bit higher. Here the average salaries are 28,640 rubles, or 68% of the average salary in the republic. Over the year, the incomes of representatives of these sectors rose almost by 4,000 rubles, or 16,9% (from 24,5050 rubles).

As strange as it might sound, those working with immovable property are also in the top lowest-paid jobs, at least according to the official statistics. Tatarstan specialists in this sphere receive on average 29,864 rubles, or 70,9% of the republic’s average. The annual growth is about 5,6% (28,267 rubles).

Highest salaries in science and mineral production

Specialists who do scientific research and developments have the highest salary in Tatarstan (66,171 rubles). Over the year, their income increased by 5,400 rubles (or by 8,9%). In general the salary is more than 1,5 times higher than the average wage in the republic (157,1%). Scientific workers outstrip oil workers in this indicator.

Workers producing minerals with a salary of 65,881 rubles (156,4% of the Tatarstan average salary) have the second-highest salary. Their income rose by 9,4% in the last year (from 60,207 rubles).

Specialists in information and communications (61,820 rubles) round up the top 3 highest paid jobs. They receive 146,8% of the average salary across Tatarstan. Over the year, these specialists had their salary raised by 20% (+10,400 rubles). In the last two years, the rise was by a third (by 33,6% from 46,257 rubles).

According to the Tatarstan Statistics Service, salaries grew in all the industries. However, not everybody agrees with it. So Anna Osipova thinks that the salaries in the vacancies that are offered haven’t changed in fact since the beginning of the year. In January, the salary, she says, was 42,000 rubles, in July, it was 43,000:

“These are average numbers. In general we can say the salaries in the region stay at one level. If we have a look at last year, we can say the salaries haven’t changed in general. In January 2020, the average salary was 42,000 rubles. The salaries have been within this bracket in the last a year and a half (41,000-43,000 rubles).”

However, the level of expected salaries, in her opinion, increased. In January 2020, the expected salary was 36,000 rubles on average, 38,000 rubles in January 2021, 39,000 rubles in July:

“The expected salary is what job seekers mention in their CV. There aren’t so many job seekers in the market, and employers have to compete for good specialists. People who enter the labour market see that they have choice, and this influences the salary they ask.”

“The wage is the lowest part, while the reward is more than 60% of the wage. It is suggested to be linked with remote working and the instability of work amount.”

Production, industry and IT are promising areas

Mashtakova singled out production among promising areas. The expert says that working from home will certainly stay for those jobs that can be far from the organisation and have a clear system of reports (sales, accounting, analytics, marketing).

Anna Osipova named information technologies among promising areas: “It is a sphere that penetrates all the sectors. Today not only IT companies but also retailing needs programmers. Food retailing is very actively hiring programmers. Also, she considers medicine and pharmaceutics promising:

“They are paid a lot of attention, we see a huge staff shortage in these spheres. There aren’t a lot of job seekers here. Private medicine is also notably developing and actively hiring people.”

Also, she says there is demand for specialists from another sphere: “Now we see interest in domestic tourism, the number of vacancies is growing. The number of tourist facilities hiring people is growing. The sphere is interesting enough today, especially in such a region as Tatarstan.” The situation with data analytics is the same:

“A lot of jobs related to it are appearing today. Companies start working with data they accumulate (data on clients, processes). And specialists who analyse this data are in demand. In general all jobs are developing intensively, transforming, something new is appearing in them. The labour market is developing in all the areas,” Osipova concluded.