Retail trade and catering in Russia hire more and more employees under 18 years of age

According to Avito Rabota, compared to last year, the number of offers for packagers has tripled, for customer service managers – 2.5 times and for sellers – it has doubled. In public catering the growth was 117%. HeadHunter service analysts also recorded a 76% increase in the number of vacancies for candidates over 14 years of age.

Magnit reported that in the first nine months of 2024, the number of accepted candidates between 16 and 17 years old increased nine-fold. In the X5 group during the summer months more than 4 thousand young specialists worked at the pilot facilities, of which 20% remained in the Pyaterochka network. Teremka also began accepting employees over 16 last year, and the Tanuki Family and Yakitoria chains are seeing an increase in responses from young people under 18, especially during the summer holidays.

Previously, it was rare to hire employees under the age of 18, but, according to Alexey Vanchugov, managing partner of Vanchugov and Partners, this has now become necessary due to staff shortages. He noted that young people are seen as temporary staff, which increases operating costs for companies.

As noted by Artem Egorenkov, director of the “Taxi, Transport and Logistics” category of the Avito Work service, the situation is changing due to the record unemployment rate in Russia, which in August 2024 reached a record low of 2.4%.

According to Avito Rabota, sellers between 16 and 18 years old are offered an average of 20,000 rubles per month, and baristas – 25.4 thousand rubles. For comparison, the average salaries on the market are 47.9 thousand rubles for sellers and 47.5 thousand rubles for baristas. The general director of the ProPersonnel recruitment agency, Tatyana Dolyakova, believes that the interest of employers in hiring both young and older employees will continue to grow and may manifest itself in other areas.