Russian defense companies have started cutting wages and hiring fewer employees, analysis finds
Demand for new workers in Russia’s defense sector has dropped to its lowest level since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, according to a new investigation by Novaya Gazeta Europe.
The outlet analyzed job listings on hh.ru, one of Russia’s biggest employment sites, collecting all posts between January 2022 and August 31, 2025. Researchers identified 1,266 companies within the country’s defense industrial complex that directly support the war effort. Over three years, those companies posted more than 577,000 vacancies.
Hiring in the defense sector peaked during the first year of the war. In August 2022, nearly two percent of all job listenings on the platform were from military-related enterprises. By summer 2025, that number had dropped significantly: defense firms posted just 34,500 vacancies. Even in January 2022, before the full-scale war, hiring in the sector was more active than it is today.
According to the report, the early wartime surge in government contracts sparked a wage race, intensified labor shortages, and pushed inflation higher. But by spring 2025, wage growth in the defense sector had stalled. New job postings now offer salaries roughly 10 percent lower than in 2024.
“While wages are rising across the country, they’ve fallen in the defense sector — for the first time since the war began,” the report notes.
Still, companies producing high-demand weapons such as drones and missiles continue to offer higher pay to attract skilled workers.
“To keep expanding production, defense factories can no longer rely solely on hiring more people,” the researchers write. “Most defense industrial complex enterprises lack the resources to build new facilities or add production lines, and they can no longer increase output simply by hiring more people. By 2025, the defense sector has hit its saturation point.”
