A Claim at Odds With Technological Reality
According to Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, “the most in-demand blue-collar professions for the long term are welders and seamstresses, who will support technological development in an era of sovereignty and import substitution.”
The statement is, to put it mildly, puzzling. With all due respect, the role of welders — and especially seamstresses — is at best secondary when it comes to the challenges of scientific and technological progress and the shift to a new economic paradigm built on gene engineering, cold fusion, robotics, molecular biology, and other advanced fields.
Nor does the claim align with the government’s long-term strategy, which prioritizes increasing the number of highly qualified professionals. In a post-industrial society, traditional “working-class” occupations now require engineering-level knowledge and competencies.
Official estimates suggest that Russia’s total need for such specialists could reach 3.8–4 million people by 2030. Meeting this demand would require training 500,000–600,000 people every year for the next several years.
The shortage is especially acute in one of the most critical sectors for technological development — the electronics industry, which needs at least 30,000 design engineers and 20,000 process engineers.
Government Ambitions vs. Economic Constraints
In December 2024, Vladimir Putin announced that Russian educational institutions must train around one million engineering specialists over the next three years. The state order for the training of engineers in priority fields has already been increased by 25–30%.
State support for information-related industries will rise in 2025 to nearly 1 trillion rubles. Yet even this level of funding may be insufficient, as the purchasing power of budget expenditures is eroded by high lending rates — a consequence of the Central Bank’s inflation-targeting policy.
