By Murad Rakhimov | 2026-07-16

Working late has become routine for millions of Russians.

As employers struggle to replace workers lost to military service, emigration and demographic decline, extra shifts are no longer an occasional burden. They have become a standard part of the workweek across much of the economy. Moscow has responded by doubling the legal annual limit on overtime, cementing a trend that many experts say reflects the growing strain of Russia's wartime economy.

Recent surveys show the pressure extends from factories and construction sites to hospitals, transportation, retail and information technology.

Overtime becomes routine

A survey commissioned by the Russian newspaper Vedomosti found that 38% of Russians regularly work overtime. The publication said staffing shortages have become widespread across nearly every sector, forcing employers to redistribute workloads among existing employees.

A separate study by hh.ru and Renaissance Insurance found that two-thirds of Russians have worked overtime, although only 40% viewed the practice negatively.

For many workers, longer hours bring higher pay. They also contribute to fatigue, burnout, declining physical and mental health, and lower productivity over time.

Experts routinely cite Russia's severe labor shortage as the immediate cause of the trend. They point to the war in Ukraine as the underlying driver.

The conflict, including the partial mobilization announced in 2022 that officially remains in effect, removed large numbers of people from the civilian workforce. Thousands of others left Russia to avoid conscription, escape political repression or because they opposed Kremlin policies.

According to Bloomberg, Russia faces a shortage of about 1.5 million workers. Officials have floated proposals ranging from restoring a six-day workweek to encouraging the country's 40 million retirees to return to work.

The government has also expanded employers' legal flexibility. On May 25, President Vladimir Putin signed amendments to Russia's Labor Code that doubled the maximum annual limit for mandatory overtime from 120 hours to 240 hours.

War reshapes workforce

Alisher Ilkhamov, director of the London-based Central Asia Due Diligence, said the surge in overtime across transportation, logistics and manufacturing is a direct consequence of the war.

"A vast number of Russians have been excluded from the civilian economy. In addition to the 1.5 million people engaged in military service, at least 700,000 have been killed or severely wounded in this war. Together, this represents roughly 3 percent of the workforce, which totals about 75 million," he told Kontur.

He said labor demands have also grown because workers must repair damage from frequent Ukrainian drone and missile strikes on oil refineries, industrial facilities and infrastructure, while keeping supply chains running.

Ilkhamov added that many employers simply cannot afford to hire additional staff.

"Finally, enterprise and organization managers have fewer financial resources to hire new personnel. Paying for overtime hours proved to be a more cost-effective option," he said.

Whether longer hours lead to widespread public frustration will depend largely on whether employees receive adequate compensation and whether employers continue to obtain legally required consent for overtime, he said.

"But we must consider that Ukrainian missile and drone strikes on targets inside Russia could trigger a collapse of the entire Russian economy. And if that happens, no amount of overtime will help," Ilkhamov said.

Weak worker protections

Aleksandr Kim, a Russian blogger and human rights advocate, said weak labor protections allow employers to take advantage of workers.

"I have not heard of labor strikes in Russia for a very long time. In practice, they do not exist today. Essentially, the culture of public struggle for labor rights in the Russian Federation has died," he told Kontur.

Kim said many workers, including doctors, teachers and other highly skilled professionals, fear challenging their employers. Although Russian law provides mechanisms to defend labor rights, employees rarely use them.

That reluctance reflects workers' dependence on employers, Aleksandr Yuzhalin, director of the labor law practice at SuperJob, told the Russian business newspaper Kommersant.

"Many employees face layoffs and struggle to secure new positions, so taking legal action or filing a complaint represents a potential conflict," Yuzhalin said.

Kim said employers reinforce that dependence by keeping a large share of compensation in discretionary bonuses instead of base salary.

"The root cause of this situation lies in the employee's dependence on the employer and the structure of payroll calculation. A significant, and sometimes major, portion of an employee's earnings arrives as a bonus rather than base salary," he said.

He said managers can reduce those bonuses at will, effectively pressuring employees into accepting unpaid overtime. Public-sector institutions increasingly rely on the same system, strengthening workers' dependence on the state.

"This state of affairs has not yet triggered public unrest or social instability, but the potential is there. Whether that potential materializes depends on how skillfully the regime cushions the blow of economic shocks. So far, it is succeeding," Kim said.

Anvar Nazirov, a Uzbekistan-based political scientist and economist, said the labor shortage extends beyond wartime losses and demographics. He argued that the Kremlin's increasingly restrictive approach to migrant labor has deepened the crisis.

"The authorities are catering to a parasitic segment of Russian society -- various nationalists and national-chauvinists. These groups are economically unproductive themselves; simply put, they refuse to work, yet they do not want to see labor migrants from Central Asia and the South Caucasus in the country either," he told Kontur.

Even if the war ends, Nazirov said many Russians who left are unlikely to return, while migrant workers cannot fill every gap.

"The situation is becoming effectively hopeless. The state is inefficient. It creates problems, but it has neither the will nor the capacity to solve them," he said.