The Ministry of Digital Development has prepared a package of new emergency measures to support the IT industry in Russia. The department sent a corresponding letter to the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Mikhail Mishustin. Among the proposed measures for programmers – deferment from the army, tax breaks and preferential mortgages. Will this help the Russian IT industry – Izvestia sorted it out.
Emergency support measures
The Ministry of Digital Development has prepared a package of new emergency measures to support the IT industry in Russia. Corresponding letter department sent Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
One of the most unusual initiatives in the package was the provision for employees of IT companies of a deferment from military service for the entire time of work. In addition, the Ministry of Digital Development proposed to exempt programmers from personal income tax for the next three years, and their companies from income tax. Employees of the industry can also begin to give preferential mortgages at a rate of 5%.
According to the letter, IT companies intend to provide preferential loans for uninterrupted work and targeted funding from the budget for the creation of an open source software repository in Russia (similar to the international GitHub).
Another item from the list of measures proposed by the Ministry of Digital Development is acceleration of software import substitution at critical information infrastructure facilities (CII, banks, energy facilities, defense facilities, etc.). In order to attract personnel from abroad, the agency proposes to simplify the procedure for obtaining work permits and residence permits for foreign developers.
The ministry asked the government to give instructions to the departments concerned and “immediately begin the implementation of these measures, providing the necessary funding.”
“Works for the future”
According to the executive director of the IT company HFLabs Konstantin Stepanov, the proposed package of support measures will help the Russian IT business to more easily survive the current situation and, possibly, will work in the future.
— The most efficient in my opinion, proposals related to tax exemption and conscription deferment. As for grants, this is a double-edged sword: many IT companies will not take them because of the risk of additional bureaucracy and complex administration, Stepanov says.
At the same time, Dmitry Komissarov, General Director of MyOffice, highlights changes in the terms of preferential lending – the ability to profitably take a mortgage can affect the choice of the industry in which a person will work. An additional motivation for university graduates to get a job in IT will be the exemption for the next three years of all employees in the field from paying personal income tax, which actually means an increase in income without additional burden on the payroll of companies.
— The released funds will become an additional motivation for employees, will allow domestic IT companies to become even more competitive in the fight for valuable personnel, and will also support investment projects of companies, mainly for the development and implementation of domestic software– notes Lev Frenkel, CEO of R-Style Softlab.
According to Frenkel, the proposed measures are very timely and, if adopted, will support the Russian technology sector, and the initiated process of import substitution in the sector will allow the Russian IT market to maintain stability.
“Moreover, I see growth points in the medium term for domestic developments that will replace foreign software and hardware that has been banned amid restrictions,” says the source of Izvestia.
In turn, the technical director of RU-CENTER Group Anton Ivakhnenko notes that that measures to support the IT industry are not being taken for the first time – but now they are also aimed directly at supporting specialists personally.
– The shortage of personnel in the IT industry is not new, and during the pandemic, competition for labor resources has increased significantly. Obviously, the state clearly understands the importance of the industry and is ready to invest in its development. Potentially, such “personal” measures can help reduce the outflow of personnel and increase the attractiveness of the industry for young people or retraining specialists from other areas, he is sure.
As Olga Lobach, Human Resources Director at Informzashchita, explains, today, the possibilities of digital technologies are directed to all spheres of society, including production, transport and financial services.
— Russia has had to compete with other countries in this area before and face problems that affect the development of human resources. Now it will become more difficult to do this, and the technology race will not stop, says Lobach. – Besides, do not forget about information security. Cyber attacks don’t surprise anyone now, news about hackers fills the media (and the threat is real, and the losses from attacks can hardly be overestimated) – and you need to be a high professional, constantly improve yourself in order to be able to detect and stop illegitimate activity.
Under the conditions of sanctions in Russia, it is necessary not only to maintain the efficiency of digital infrastructure, banks, public services, and agricultural technology, but also to ensure the development of all areas, says Lev Frenkel. In addition, IT professionals will likely have to create many new software products to replace those that become unavailable. And compared to any other industry, the risk of losing staff in this area is especially high.
— IT people are mobile people, they can easily integrate into life abroad. Plus, they are highly demanded specialists in many countries. Experience shows that in a normal situation, a prepared relocation takes 1-1.5 years, but now people can sacrifice careful preparation, says Konstantin Stepanov.
According to him, in the labor market, everyone has now taken a wait-and-see attitude. It is difficult to predict what the situation will be and what will happen to the salaries of developers. It is possible that outsourcing teams working for foreign customers will have difficulties. Foreign companies can offer relocation to key employees, while the rest are likely to go looking for work.
Shortage of employees
According to Olga Lobach, during the pandemic, the number of IT companies and projects in the country has increased dramatically, which has created a large number of new vacancies in the labor market. However, so far there is no one to fill these places: the shortage of personnel in the digital economy is about 1 million people, and further this figure will only grow.
“Companies that want to attract the most intelligent specialists are faced with the problem of their shortage,” says the interlocutor of Izvestia. – Institutes, with rare exceptions, practically do not provide the knowledge necessary for programmers and the practice they need. Numerous courses that are on the market are affiliated with large companies, which then recruit the most talented students to work. In addition, globalization has intensified the race of countries for specialists: large companies are looking for and attracting especially valuable personnel, providing them with favorable conditions for relocation or remote work.
Lev Frenkel, in turn, cites internal data, according to which demand for developers in the regions over the past year has grown by more than one and a half times. This is also confirmed by published studies of job search portals: the demand for programmers in Russia as a whole increased by 75%.
— And I expect that the domestic market will receive up to 3,000 IT specialists from neighboring countries by the end of this year. In many ways, their decision to move can also be motivated by measures of additional state support, the expert concludes.
Strategic objectives
According to experts interviewed by Izvestia, there will be a lot of work for IT companies in Russia in the future. According to Sergey Izrailit, Vice President for Development and Planning of the Skolkovo Foundation, first of all, such companies may be interested in the proposals formed by the Ministry of Digital Development. After all, the conditions for doing business for them will improve significantly.
— The key task for the IT industry is to retain specialists who provide the development and implementation of solutions necessary for the Russian economy. We have a significant part of the industry was export-oriented. We oriented Skolkovo residents to make world-class technology companies. Given what is happening now in terms of interaction between Russia and a number of states, such companies will need to be kept. On the other hand, those companies that are focused on the Russian market will remain in the country. Additional opportunities are opening up for them in connection with the withdrawal of some foreign suppliers from the Russian market. And also due to the fact that it is necessary to actively replace foreign imports,” he notes.
In turn, Elena Volotovskaya, Softline Vice President for Investments and Head of the Opora Rossii IT Committee, believes that today The digitalization agenda in Russia is very relevant. The scale of the country, the number of citizens living on its territory, ambitious tasks in the socio-economic sphere – all these are prerequisites for an active transition to digital.
“But without a sufficient number of highly qualified specialists, digitalization will stall. The personnel issue must be resolved as soon as possible, Volotovskaya believes.
According to Elina Kudishina, HR Director at Oberon, The main value of any effective IT business is people: for digitalization and market development, first of all, qualified personnel are needed. At the same time, the lack of IT specialists with high expertise has been observed for several years in a row. In recent years, the areas related to in-house development, artificial intelligence, Big Data and information security have become the most popular.
As Sergei Izrailit explains, today the IT market in Russia is already overheated, as a large number of digital transformation projects have been launched in both the public and private sectors. Moreover, a number of companies, especially technology leaders Yandex, Sberbank and VK, have launched advanced programs to create an IT infrastructure. This required a large number of specialized specialists.
“As a result, the level of wages has increased several times over the past three years. Perhaps the shortage of IT-specialists will increase. Therefore, measures that stimulate the industry are timely and necessary for its development, – concludes the interlocutor of Izvestia.
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