Ministry of Economy: Belarusian agricultural enterprises lack staff

The country’s agricultural enterprises suffer from a chronic deficit of employees.

Only half of them have enough staff, shows a poll among directors of agricultural enterprises carried out by the Economy Research Institute of the Ministry of Economy. Heads of 429 agricultural organizations and farms were questioned, BelaPAN news agency reports.

49.4% of respondents are satisfied with the number of staff. 43% of managers claim lack of employees and 7.6% evaluated the staffing level as “very low”.

“The biggest staff shortage is noticed among IT specialists. 28% of agricultural enterprises say the number of these employees was very low and 33.6% say the staffing level was insufficient,” reads the December issue of Economic Bulletin published by the Economy Research Institute of the Ministry of Economy.

Agricultural enterprises also lack agricultural engineers (56.2%), milking machine operators (52.2%) and animal breeders (50.9%).

Specialists of the Research Economy Institute think the lack of staff is caused by low wages and hard working conditions. The problem is aggravated by the fact that many employees go to work in Russia.

“The problem of the outflow of employees causing a chronic shortage of staff is especially acute in the regions bordering with Russia – the Homel region (37.5% of the total number of cases) and the Mahilou region (31%),” the Research Economy Institute says.

Economists think Belarusian agricultural enterprises are characterized by high staff turnover.

“High personnel turnover is typical for organizations offering lower than average wages, while low staff turnover is normal for organizations with high wages,” specialists from the Research Economy Institute say.