Since this year, more and more non-working pensioners are becoming employed

As the results of a survey conducted by one of the employment services show, many pensioners are not going to sit back and wait for the state to index their payments. As a sphere for work (and part-time work), they prefer retail - 37%. The sphere of online services for themselves is chosen by 27% of respondents, and the delivery of goods - 13%. As you can see, additional labor resources are entering the labor market this year. And there is a reason for that.

If previously non-working pensioners hid their part-time jobs by hook or by crook (otherwise they were automatically denied pension indexation), now this can be made a secret. From 2025, working pensioners will have their pensions indexed in the same way as non-working ones.

The results of the study show that most of our veterans still have "gunpowder in their flasks": 63% of survey participants are ready to work full time. The service's analysts note that several reasons force elderly Russians to resume their work shift. In particular, the low size of their own pension or the desire to help their relatives. "For a comfortable life in retirement, 54% of respondents consider an income of 70-100 thousand rubles per month necessary," the authors of the study point out.

Although here a question arises. Why leave your main job to earn extra money in retirement and then look for a new "haven" - say, the trade sector? After all, if a person worked for several years at one enterprise, it means that he was satisfied with both the working conditions and the salary. It is unlikely that the employer "asked" him - with the current shortage of personnel, specialists are not being thrown away.

In retail, a pensioner can't count on much - junior service personnel: a salesperson or a cashier. The work is tiring, and if the debit and credit don't match when handing over the proceeds, then you'll have to compensate for the shortfall out of your own pocket...

The situation with personnel in marketplaces is even more acute. The salary of an employee who issues goods upon orders is in some cases equal to 11 thousand rubles per month. Perhaps not every pensioner would agree to such a job.

Chairman of the Board of the Association of Market Retail Experts Andrey Karpov says that in conditions of personnel shortage, they are willing to hire pensioners - permanently or temporarily.

“It all depends on how qualified a person is and how capable he is of performing his duties,” he explains.

— What positions can a pensioner hold?

— We need salespeople, cashiers. If a person has the appropriate specialty, then he can take the vacancy of a commodity expert or, say, a pastry chef. But this is if he has special skills and experience.

— Is there any seasonality in the work of supermarkets that requires additional workers?

— There are certain periods, for example, before the New Year, when a certain excitement, increased demand, and influx of buyers are expected. Then we attract additional forces for temporary work, including pensioners. They are mainly engaged in placing goods on the retail shelf, because the products are sold out very quickly.

— What is the salary of a cashier in a supermarket or a salesperson?

— I can’t say for sure. Salaries vary greatly from region to region, they also depend on the established average salary in the subject of the Federation. In addition, each retail chain monitors the salaries of its competitors, everyone is equal to each other. And if someone raises their salary, other market participants also raise it.

— Online trading, marketplaces — are they serious competition for retail chains?

— In terms of food, supermarkets are the main leaders, the main participants in food trade. Serious competition is observed in the sphere of sales of non-food goods: electronics, fashion - clothes, shoes, cosmetics, perfumes, accessories. In these categories, online trade is strongly enticing the buyer. There is a wider choice here, and the goods are often cheaper. Here, traditional online trade cannot withstand the competition. But in any case, today the share of online trade is on average about 15%, the rest is occupied by offline trade.

…At the beginning of this year, there were just over 41 million pensioners in Russia, of whom 8.2 million were officially employed. In 2016, when the government froze pension indexation for workers, more than 5 million pensioners left the labor market. Since then, their number in the country has been steadily declining. And only in 2024, when it became known that indexation of this category would resume, about 343 thousand pensioners returned to the labor market.

It looks like their numbers will now increase, as they say, the trumpet calls...

Published in the newspaper "Moskovsky Komsomolets" No. 29549 of June 26, 2025

Newspaper headline: Part-time job in law