Expatriates on the Russian labour market 2017 - Antal Russia

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2017
Expatriates on the
Russian labour market
Introduction
                                        problem of attracting and motivating
                                        them remains pressing.

                                        Why do expatriates still choose
                                        Russia? What are the conditions that
                                        they accept today for working in the
                                        country? How have their income and
                                        their compensation package changed?
                                        These are the points that we are going
                                        to share with you in this survey along
                                        with other insights.

Dear readers, here’s our publication    Kind regards,
about expatriates working in Russia.    Michael Germershausen,
It has stemmed from our annual job      Managing Director
market survey. The number of            Antal, Russia
participants of our survey is growing   mg@antalrussia.com
each year, which lets us make our re-
search even more thorough. This time
we received over 8000 responses from
managers and specialists of which
2% are expatriates. We decided
to study their responses separately.

We expatriates aren’t very
numerous in the country now. But
if you are reading this publication –
perhaps you are one of the people
who still continue working in Russia.
However drastically the economic
environment might change, foreign
specialists aren’t going to disappear
from the Russian labour market
completely, which means that the

                                                                           2
Demographics
Today, a typical expatriate employee in Russia is a male top manager aged
over 31 residing in Moscow or St. Petersburg and employed in an international
company. The majority of expatriate participants of our survey fit this
description.

AGE
         2%   6%
27%
                   31%
                             Younger than 25
                                                 The survey covered 146 expatriate
                             25-30 years old
                                                 employees of which 87% are men.
                             31-40 years old     Nearly 80% of the respondents live
                                                 in Moscow or St. Petersburg.
                             41-50 years old

 34%                         51 or older

POSITION LEVEL                                       11%

92% of those surveyed are                                                66%
over 31. Two thirds hold senior
                                               23%
management positions.

                          Top-level manager          Mid-level manager         Specialist

Expatriates are employed in companies of all sizes, although the majority
(78%) work in international companies.
Compared to Russian respondents, the share of people who have side jobs
apart from their main occupation is slightly smaller among expatriates. While
every fifth Russian employee says they have secondary employment, only
17% of expatriates mention it.

                                                                                        3
TYPE OF CONTRACT
                        64%
        16%                                           The majority of foreign employees
                                                      are employed on a local contract,
                                                      although 20% retained their
                                                      contract with the head office
                                                      of their company when moving
                                                      to Russia, and 16% have two
20%
                                                      contracts.

      Local contract    Contract with head office             Both
                        based abroad

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

No university degree
                               6%

Bachelor degree                            25%

University degree                 12%

Master degree                                       38%
Candidate of Sciences          5%

МВА                                 13%

Other                       1%

  Like Russian respondents, most expatriates hold a university degree.
  As for an MBA, however, the share of people holding it is nearly twice
  greater among expatriates (13% against 7% for local employees).

                                                                                      4
Living in Russia
44% of the expatriate respondents have been living in Russia for over 10 years.
The share of people who have moved to Russia fairly recently and have spent
less than 2 years here is 24%, with 14% of those surveyed living in our country
for 3 to 5 years, and 18% – for 6 to 10 years.
Only 9% of the expatriates first moved to Russia, and then began searching
for a job here. The majority of foreign managers moved to Russia because they
had received an invitation from an employer; 26% remained with their existing
company, having been transferred to our country from their head office or other
location.

HOW THE JOB IN RUSSIA WAS FOUND

The employer found me                                                45%

I was transferred from an international office
                                                               26%

I was looking for a job in Russia specifically
                                                         10%

I moved to Russia first and then found a job here
                                                         9%
I started with working remotely for a Russian company
/Russian branch of an international company, and then   4%
I had an opportunity to move

Other                                                   6%

  The majority of foreign specialists moved to Russia for professional
  reasons: 38% mentioned challenging job tasks, 20% were motivated
  financially and 12% were attracted by a promotion. A quarter of the
  respondents had personal reasons for moving: they have a Russian
  spouse (13%) or are interested in the country generally (12%).

                                                                            5
REASONS OF MOVE TO RUSSIA

   38%

                         20%
                                                 13%
                                                                       12%               12%
                                                                                                        5%

The tasks              The offer was        I have a Russian       I always wanted     A promotion     Other
were challenging       interesting          spouse                 to live in Russia   was offered
                       financially                                                     with the move

HOW LONG PLANNING TO STAY IN RUSSIA
                          3%
          15%
                                      20%                      Remarkably, most expatriates
                                                               link their long-term plans with
26%                                                            our country; 58% of those
                                                               surveyed would like to remain
                                                               in Russia for more than 5 years,
                                         19%
                                                               while as few as 3% plan to leave
                                                               within a year.

                     17%

      Less than 1 year                   1-2 years

      3-5 years                          6-10 years

      More than 10 years                 All my life

The expatriates who move to Russia realise the importance of speaking Russian
and try to master it. This is evidenced by the fact that 73% of our respondents
speak Russian and are able to use it in their work. Only 2% of the surveyed
neither speak Russian nor plan to study the language.
RUSSIAN LANGUAGE SKILLS
I’m fluent in Russian, I can use it as
a working language                                                                           73%

I know some everyday Russian, but
Russian is not my working language
                                                             13%

I have basic knowledge of Russian                      5%

I don’t know Russian at all but
I’m going to learn it                                   7%
I don’t know Russian at all and I’m
NOT going to learn it                                  2%

                                                                                                         6
‘Expat’ itself is no
longer a profession?
                        The situation regarding Expats in Moscow appears to have sta-
                        bilized in recent months after a turbulent past few years with
                        the crash in the global price of oil sending the value of the
                        Russian Ruble plummeting. If this wasn’t bad enough, Russia
                        was cast into the cold by the international community follow-
                        ing the annexation of the Crimean peninsula resulting in finan-
                        cial sanctions being imposed by many Western countries.

                        Although the Ruble regained some of these losses, many inter-
                        national companies had already reacted by cutting ‘expensive’
Expats whose salaries were pegged to the Euro or the US Dollar as they suddenly
cost more than double, and that was even before taking into account their (often very
generous) packages which typically included accommodation, flights home, schooling
for their children and even a car with an accompanying driver. Cries that this wasn’t
fair because their remuneration came out of a different budget fell on deaf ears; the
bottom line was that a Russian would happily do their job for a Ruble salary, and
without the need to all the add-on benefits. On top of this, many business were strug-
gling to make end meet so replacing a top-end foreigner with a local was viewed back
in head office as a prudent move, in many cases long overdue.

There still Expats in Russia and probably always will be, but ‘Corp-Pats’ (those who
arrive, having been sent in by their existing firm from abroad) are now only sent in to
senior roles where it’s believed that a local candidate doesn’t exist. As the market has
localized over the past decade, such people have become rarer. Those who wanted
to remain in Russia, often for personal reasons typically found themselves having to
accept working on a local contract, although with Russia’s low income tax rate (flat
13%), this was still deemed more profitable than returning home.

Others have resigned themselves to teaching English – either as a way of sticking
around or because they simply wouldn’t find employment elsewhere as they have
failed to adapt to the new Russia, which means being able to do business in Russian.
It is disappointing at how few Expats can hold even a basic conversation in Russian
despite having lived & worked for a decade or two in Russia. The upshot is that if you
want to work in Russia as a foreigner, you need to be able to do something which
locals cannot do, or be able to do it better, or differently. ‘Expat’ itself is no longer a
profession!

Luc Jones,
Partner, Commercial Director
Antal, Russia
Luc.Jones@antalrussia.com
                                                                                        7
Job satisfaction
and motivation
Expatriate employees are happier about their remuneration and their
compensation packages than local workers, as well as their job overall.
However, they are noticeably less satisfied with their work/Iife balance
(43% against 53% for Russian employees).

LEVEL OF JOB SATISFACTION

        Job as a whole                23%         53%                               18%      6%
                                                                                                  3%
        Level of
        compensation                  22%         53%                               13%   9%
                                                                                                  4%
        Relations among
        colleagues                    36%                   38%                     22%
                                                                                                  1%
        Employee-management
        relations                     34%                   35%                20%          9%
                                                                                            5% 4%
        Compensation package
                                      20%          45%                        26%
                                                                                                   3%
        Workload-compensation
        balance                       15%    39%                        28%           16%
                                                                                                   1%
        Work-life balance
                                      16%    28%                  37%                 19%

   Fully satisfied        Rather               Neutral              Rather                  Fully dissatisfied
                          satisfied                                 dissatisfied

READINESS TO RECOMMEND THE EMPLOYER

              7%                            Yes
        4%                  45%                                           Still, expatriates are
12%
                                            Rather yes                    willing to recommend their
                                            Rather no                     employer to others slightly
                                            Certainly not
                                                                          more often than local
                                                                          employees (77% against
  32%
                                            I do not know                 71%).

                                                                                                                 8
Moves
Expatriates are more loyal to their current employer than Russian employees
with 21% of foreign specialists not considering moving to a new job, while the
share of Russians who definitely aren’t planning to change jobs is only 15%.

PLANS TO CHANGE JOB

   21%
                             31%

                                             Currently looking for a job

                                             Plan to start looking for a new job

                                             I’m not looking for a job but I’m willing
                                             to consider an interesting offer

                                             Don’t envisage moving
  32%                      16%

Of the expatriates who do want to change their job, over a half would like their
new position to also be in Russia. The share of the respondents who definitely
want to leave is only 14%.

Notably, 14% of expatriates don’t expect that their salary will grow when they
move to a new job, while of the local employees only 7% would agree to a move
without a salary increase.

                                                                                         9
Remuneration
While in 2015 as few as                 CURRENCY OF REMUNERATION
36% of expatriates had their
income pegged to the local
currency, in 2017 the majority                        8%
of foreign employees (52%) have               12%
                                                                       52%
their salary pegged to the Ruble,
a quarter (28%) to the euro, and
12% to the dollar. The remaining
8% of expatriates stated either              28%
that they have a ‘mixed’ income,
receiving part of their salary
in Rubles and the remainder                     Russian Rouble (RUR)
in foreign currency, or that their              Euro (EUR)
salary is pegged to a different
currency (for example, to the                   American dollar(USD)
Swiss Franc or to the Dirham).                  Other currency

It’s becoming increasingly frequent that expatriates are paid about the same
salary as local employees but expatriates receive “cash-in-hand” payments
considerably less frequently than their Russian colleagues do. A total
of 96% of foreign respondents receive official payments only, while only
85% of Russian employees are paid officially.

In 2017, 40% of the expatriates had a salary increase, for 52% the salary has
remained unchanged, and 8% saw a salary decrease. This generally reflects
the trends in salary dynamics for all the participants of the survey.

However, the increment wasn’t great. Expatriates received only nominal pay
rises (of under 5%) rather more frequently than local employees did. This
correlates with the reasons for the increase. Unlike Russian employees,
expatriates often received a salary increase due to a revision of salaries
throughout the company or based on their performance (without a promotion).

                                                                                10
REASONS OF SALARY INCREASE

Salaries in the company were revised                          40%
                                                            35%

I received a salary increase based                           36%
on good performance                                   23%

                                              7%
I was promoted
                                                13%

New job                                        13%
                                                  22%

                                                                           Expatriates
                                             4%
Other                                         7%                           Russians

Pleasing to hear was that 62% of expatriates received a bonus for 2016,
which is 7 pp more than amongst local employees. Also, the number of people
who don’t have a bonus in their compensation package is 6 pp less among
expatriates.

The bonuses of expatriate employees are generally slightly higher. For
instance, the share of people whose bonus amounted to 30 to 100% of their
annual salary is 36% amongst expatriates, while for local employees it’s just
24%.

ANNUAL BONUS FOR THE LAST FINANCIAL YEAR

             18%
                                       62%

                                                      Yes, I received

                                                      No, because I didn’t hit my KPI’s
 14%
                                                      No, because all bonus schemes
                                                      were cancelled in the company
        6%
                                                      No, not entitled to receive one

                                                                                          11
Benefits
Compensation packages of expatriate workers remain more attractive than
those of local employees. On average, foreign employees receive 7 benefits
in their compensation package while local employees get just 5.

BENEFITS
                                                                                       75%
          Bonus scheme
                                                                                 62%

          Mobile phone allowance
                                                                                     71%
                                                                               60%
          Voluntary health insurance
                                                                                   69%
                                                                                  66%
          Car or car allowance                                                   62%
                                                                  31%
          Flexible working                                                 50%
                                                                   35%
          Housing allowance                                              46%
                                                      7%
          Parking                                                       43%
                                                                  31%
          Voluntary health insurance
          for your family                                               43%
                                                            22%

          Extra vacation days
                                                                     39%
                                                                   33%
          Life insurance                                     25%
                                                               31%
          Share incentive/EMI scheme/
          option scheme                                      25%
                                                       9%
          Lunch allowance                                    22%
                                                               30%
          Schooling allowance*                               22%

          Hardship allowance*                               20%

          Company pension scheme                            19%
                                                      7%
          Transport expenses allowance                    16%
                                                         14%
          Fitness allowance
                                                       10%
                                                         14%                   Expatriates

          Flexible benefits
                                                       10%
                                                      5%                       Russians

 *Option was not offered to respondents from Russia

                                                                                             12
Predictably, the greatest gap in the availability of benefits is for housing
allowance (compensation packages of expatriates include this benefit 39 pp
more often), car allowance (31 pp gap in availability), voluntary health
insurance for the family (21 pp more often), and shares/stock options in the
company (16 pp more often). Besides, some employers add to compensation
packages of expatriates an allowance for their children’s education and extra
pay for the challenging working conditions in Russia, sometimes referred
to as a ‘hardship allowance’.

Forecast of economic
prospects
Nearly a half of the expatriates (48%) are optimistic or very optimistic about
the prospects of the Russian economy in the next 12 months, while the figure
for Russian respondents is a mere 23%. Also, the percentage of pessimists
is nearly twice lower amongst expatriates (19% against 35%).

ESTIMATION OF THE PROSPECTS OF THE RUSSIAN ECONOMY OVER THE NEXT
12 MONTHS

   7% 1%           41% 22%        41% 22%          14% 29%            5% 6%

Very optimistic    Optimistic     Neutral         Pessimistic   Very pessimistic

     Expatriates      Russians

Methodology
The survey and data analysis was conducted from March 28th to July 28th,
2017. It covered 146 expatriates residing mostly in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Apart from these, the survey covered nearly 8,000 Russian managers and spe-
cialists working in Moscow and in other regions of Russia.

The publication also uses data from the Labor market overview and Salary Sur-
vey 2017 with more than 8,000 participants among managers and specialists
from Russia working in Moscow and Russia’s regions.

To receive the full version of the Labour market overview and Salary Survey
2017, please apply via our website: https://antalrussia.com/salary-survey/
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