KREMLIN CRUNCH

Putin Plots Jaw-Dropping Law Change to Solve Workforce Crisis

Russia is struggling with a labor shortage linked to the war in Ukraine.

Russia is weighing a remarkable fix for its worsening labor shortage by putting children to work years earlier than current law allows. A senior Russian official has proposed lowering the country’s effective working age to 12 and reviving Soviet-style labor camps, arguing that teenagers are eager to spend their summers earning money instead of sitting idle. The proposal came from children’s rights commissioner Olga Yaroslavskaya, who said Russia should rethink labor laws as the country’s workforce crunch deepens. “When we talk to teenagers aged 12 and over, they all want to work in the summer, almost all of them,” Yaroslavskaya said. Under current Russian law, children can work from age 14 with parental consent and sign their own labor contracts from age 15. Yaroslavskaya said that should change, insisting “it is no secret that we need to change federal labor legislation.” She also pushed for the return of labor camps, saying, “It seems to me that the return of labor camps is a realistic scenario that our children will support.” To make her case, Yaroslavskaya recalled working in a Soviet youth camp as a child. Economists have warned that Russia’s labor shortage, fueled by the war in Ukraine, threatens to weigh on the country’s economy for years.