Russian seafood companies are investing in apprenticeship and internship programs in response to facing a shortage of trained workers.
That deficit that stands to increase as the Russian government continues its renovation program for the country’s seafood industry.
Russian fishing companies have been experiencing a lack of skilled workers for years. The deficit is across all levels of the profession, from deckhands to captains. The worker shortage issue doesn’t appear to be due to a lack of pay. According to a survey by media agency RIA Novosti, published early in 2022, those employed in the fishing industry enjoy one of the highest average income rates in Russia.
While the highest-paid workers in the country were financial specialists in Moscow, fishermen from Murmansk ranked second with a monthly salary of RUB 193,000 (USD 3,198, EUR 3,100) on average, followed by fishermen from Magadan, in Russia’s Far East, with an average monthly salary of RUB 169,000 (USD 2,800, EUR 2,700). Fourth in the rankings were fishermen in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, also in Russia’s Far East, who earn an average monthly salary of RUB 135,000 (USD 2,236, EUR 2,154). The average salary in Russia in 2022 is just RUB 62,270 (USD 1,031, EUR 993), the Russian Federal Agency for Statistics said.
The Russian government estimates there are around 120,000 workers in the country’s seafood industry, and fishing ranked as one of the highest-paying industries in Russia in both 2019 and 2020, even though the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The All-Russian Association of Fishing Industry (VARPE) said over the last eight years, the average salary of fishing company employees has increased 100 percent.
Despite the high pay, VARPE said – in a response to a request from the Russian Ministry of Agriculture – that fishing companies are suffering from a lack of specialists in ship navigation, ship engineering, electrical equipment operations, refrigeration and food equipment management, and trawling equipment maintenance.