Citizens of Former Soviet Republics Remain Glum About Job Prospects - Study

Citizens of the former Soviet Union were among the most pessimistic in the world about their job prospects last year, even though the number who thought it was a good time to find work rose more than in any other region of the world, a study released Friday by the Gallup polling organization found. “The former Soviet Union, as a region, saw the largest increase last year in the percentage of adults saying it was a good time to find work, with 27 percent saying this, up four points from last year,” the report says. But, as in the rest of the world, a majority of adults in former Soviet republics were pessimistic that they would be able to find a job in 2012. In fact, 55 percent of adults in the ex-USSR said last year was a bad time to find work in the region. In Russia, pessimism about job opportunities was slightly lower than the global average, with 53 percent of Russian adults saying 2012 was not a good time to find work at home and 26 percent saying they were optimistic about their job prospects, up four points from 2011. Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were bright spots for job-outlook optimists with 58 percent and 57 percent respectively saying they thought 2012 was a good time to find work at home. For Turkmen job-seekers, “historically high oil prices last year likely contributed to bright employment prospects,” Gallup said in its report. The report did not go into detail about Tajik job-seekers’ optimism. The landlocked central Asian country has one of the lowest GDPs per capita of any of the former Soviet republics, and many Tajiks go to Russia to work, sending remittances back home to support their families, according to the CIA World Factbook. In Moldova, where the economy depends heavily on agriculture and almost all energy supplies have to be imported, mostly from Russia and Ukraine, an overwhelming majority of adults – 90 percent – were pessimistic about finding work at home. Taken as a whole, the former Soviet Union ranked below Sub-Saharan Africa in terms of job optimism, and just above the Middle East and North Africa. Adults in the Americas were the most optimistic about finding a job in their region – 40 percent thought 2012 was a good time to do so – followed by Asians (35 percent), and sub-Saharan Africans at 32 percent. In the Middle East and North Africa, job optimism was at the same level as in the former Soviet Union but the percentage of adults who were pessimistic about finding a job was 11 percentage points higher, at 66 percent compared to 55 percent in the ex-USSR. At rock-bottom on the job optimism scale was Europe, where just 17 percent of adults said 2012 was a good time to find work in their region. The outlook was particularly grim in Greece, were only one percent of adults polled said they were optimistic about their job prospects at home in 2012. Unemployment is hovering near 27 percent in Greece, where nearly two-thirds of young people are out of work as the country struggles through a sixth year of recession.