Russian poultry companies at a meeting of the Ministry of Agriculture expressed concern about the shortage of staff. According to their estimates, they are short of up to 6 thousand workers, Kommersant writes, citing sources.

The major players of the market - Cherkizovo group and the Agro group "Resurs", the companies themselves also confirm this information, said the newspaper.

One of the possible reasons is the outflow of the population from small towns where the companies are located, explained in "Resurs". Cherkizovo points out that people are leaving the enterprises also because of the competition on the labor market: many employees are leaving factories to actively developing delivery services. This outflow cannot be replaced with labor migrants because of the pandemic, market players complain.

Manufacturers have already tried to attract more workers by raising salaries to 50 thousand rubles. But the sum is still lower than in delivery services, where the staff receives up to 90 thousand rubles. Now the companies have run out of opportunities to increase wages - at the meeting they offered the authorities to cut insurance premiums which will free up funds for wage hikes.

The leading market players are concerned that this situation can result in the reduction of the product range and, subsequently, in the reduction of production. For example, according to the data of the National Union of Poultry Breeders, from January to July 2021 the output of chicken in the country has dropped by almost 2%, down to 3.5 million tons.

The Ministry of Agriculture said that the situation with the personnel at poultry farms is stable, but agrees that there is indeed a shortage of staff. At the same time, the ministry predicts that by the end of 2021, the country's poultry production will be comparable to the results of 2020.