In Komi, the personnel shortage in the forestry industry has reached the level of the prosecutor's office

In Komi, the personnel shortage in the forestry industry has reached the level of the prosecutor's office

    The problem of the shortage of qualified personnel in the Russian timber industry is reaching a new level. In Syktyvkar, industry workers reported a critical shortage of specialists personally to the Prosecutor of the Komi Republic, Nikolai Egorov, during his visit to the Les-Invest enterprise. The situation is aggravated by the systemic crisis of specialized education and social problems in forest settlements.

The educational foundation is cracking

    The main signal from the representatives of the timber industry was not just the lack of workers, but the destruction of the personnel training system itself. The employees pointed out the acute shortage of teachers and masters of industrial training in specialized educational institutions in the region, which train specialists for the forestry industry.

Context: The problem of "aging" of teaching staff in technical schools and colleges is aggravated by low salaries and the outflow of qualified specialists from the industry as a whole. This creates a vicious circle: without experienced mentors, it is impossible to train high-quality young specialists, which in the future jeopardizes the implementation of production plans of logging and woodworking enterprises.

    According to the participants of the meeting, the personnel shortage is already beginning to negatively affect the quality of training for future workers in the industry, which is an alarming signal for the entire LPC region.

Social cross-section: forest settlement as an indicator of problems

     The visit of the prosecutor and the personal reception of the employees revealed a wider range of socio-economic problems that directly affect the attractiveness of work in the forestry industry. Les-Invest employees raised questions:

•     - The availability of medical services in conditions of a shortage of specialized specialists and remoteness from large centers.
•     - The growth of utility bills against the background of not always stable incomes.
•     - The state of urban infrastructure, which is especially painful for single-industry towns and villages.
•     - Transport isolation: The issue of the lack of bus service to the village of Chovyu and the need for sidewalks and safe pedestrian crossings is acute. For many workers, the road to work is becoming a daily ordeal.

Systemic problems of the Komi forest industry:

Reactions and perspectives

    The Prosecutor's office of the republic stated that all received appeals were taken under special control. The materials have already been sent to relevant departments — the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Construction and Housing and Communal Services, the Ministry of Transport of the region — for detailed review and subsequent monitoring of the implementation.

Importance to the industry

    This case in Komi is not a local story. This is a symptom of a systemic problem of the Russian LPC. The shortage of personnel, aggravated by social insecurity and the collapse of the vocational education system, is becoming one of the main brakes on the development of the industry, along with logistics and sanctions. The prosecutor's office's reaction may be the beginning of a review of regional and possibly federal programs to support forest settlements and modernize educational institutions.

Tags: #Komi #Syktyvkar #Les_Invest #human resources #forestry #vocational education #prosecutor's office #social problems