Quickly and without severance pay: a wave of “quiet layoffs” has begun at Russian companies
12 May 15:01
One in four companies in Russia has begun laying off staff, often without severance pay. This is reported by "Komersant Ukrainian", citing Russian propaganda media.
The trend is called “quiet layoffs”—this is when people are removed from the payroll as quickly as possible, creating terrible working conditions, sometimes without the usual severance packages and with minimal public outcry.
For several years, businesses actively hired people to drive import substitution, expand into new markets, and advance digitalization. Many were hired “for the future.” Now, projects are being frozen, costs are being slashed, and companies are shifting from expansion to survival.
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The first signs appeared as early as 2024, when large corporations, including VK and MTS, began announcing layoffs. In 2025, the trend gained momentum and swept across a significant portion of the market. For example, 14 credit institutions downsized their staff, including the largest banks, VTB and Sberbank. The latter, in particular, laid off 20% of its employees.
Now, workforce optimization has become a persistent trend in the labor market, as employers try to cut costs amid an economic slowdown, falling revenue, and rising expenses, experts note.
“Big business is no longer pretending that teams can be kept unchanged indefinitely, ignoring strategy, efficiency, and changes in the external environment,” explains Marina Tarnopolskaya, managing partner at Kontakt InterSearch.
The problem is most acute in IT, fintech, digital marketing, and consulting—sectors that grew rapidly after the war began and hired high-cost specialists in anticipation of future projects, but now cannot maintain their previous spending levels.
“Regionally, this is more pronounced in major cities—Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Novosibirsk—where the concentration of such companies is highest,” clarifies Tatyana Podilskaya, an expert at the Presidential Academy.
At the same time, employers are increasingly trying to persuade employees to resign “voluntarily” or by mutual agreement without significant compensation. According to Viktoria Rybalko, a senior partner at the law firm “Shcheglov & Partners,” “over the past six to nine months,” highly qualified, well-paid employees—who were once recruited to carry out complex projects—have been actively complaining about this. She added that the majority of inquiries come from technical specialists involved in the digitalization of business processes.
Lawyers at BLS confirm a sharp increase in the number of labor disputes and court cases, which “are becoming a constant backdrop for business.” According to them, firing employees has always been difficult, but now the moral aspect of the issue has taken a back seat. However, in 71% of cases, the courts side with the employees, BLS adds.
According to experts’ forecasts, companies will continue to cut costs and staff en masse.
2026 will be spent searching for an answer to the question of how to fire an employee, preferably without severance pay, and so that if they throw a tantrum, it happens outside the office, concludes an HR specialist interviewed by the media.
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