The Real Sector of the Economy in October 2015: Factors and Trends

Abstract

In October 2015, the negative factors in the Russian economy included, firstly, declining consumer demand on the back of a drop of 11.7% and 5.2% in retail trade volume and households’ real income, respectively, secondly, a 5.2% reduction of investments in capital assets and, thirdly, a higher slump of up to 5.9% in manufacturing (all the above data are given on a year-on-year basis).In addition to the above, throughout 2015 weakening of contribution of net exports to the GDP dynamics was observed. In October 2015, gross wages growth rates slowed down to 3.0% against 8.9% a year before and the real wages downward trend consolidated: there was a 10% year-on-year drop in real wages. In October 2015, higher differentiation in labour remuneration across all the lines of economic activities with growth of 8% year-on-year and 13.7% year-on-year in the general rate of unemployment and the number of registered unemployed with the public employment service, respectively, complicated the situation on the labour market.