Lukashenka’s Main Resource Has 'Vanished'

The dictator wants Belarusians to work three times more.

In recent years, Belarus has been searching for all sorts of things—commercial quantities of oil and gas, gold and diamonds. There were plans to mine gypsum and sell it to anyone interested, as well as to develop bauxite deposits. Now, the authorities are looking for rare earth metals and even exploring cryptocurrency mining. However, Belarus is actually lacking a completely different resource. The latest episode of the Optimum show on the Belarusians and the Market YouTube channel discusses why Lukashenko wants Belarusians to work three times more.

The main resource that Belarus and the Belarusian economy lack is people. And the deficit of this resource cannot be miraculously replenished. Because there is nowhere to get people. The Minsk police are now conducting raids to identify citizens who are not employed in the economy.

On March 3, Interior Minister Ivan Kubrakou reported that the raids had been a complete success. He said that there were queues of people wanting to get a job at the employment offices. He promised that they would find everyone.

“Of course, everyone who uses social benefits is obliged to work,” Kubrakou said.

Well, the minister, of course, knows better about the queues of people wanting to work at the employment offices. The employees report to him. But somehow the police raids did not help solve the problem of the personnel shortage. As of March 5, the total number of vacancies in the economy was 190 thousand people. At the same time, 70 percent were in blue-collar jobs. The second most important there is the trade sector. The Ministry of Trade recently complained that some rural stores have to be closed simply because there is no one to work there.

According to official data from Belstat, which it published this week, 112 thousand people left Belarus to work abroad last year alone. Since 2020, between 500,000 and 600,000 people have emigrated from Belarus, according to conservative estimates.

The authorities, of course, have tried to solve this problem in the ways available to them. Not only with police raids. They constantly scare Belarusians with horrors abroad. Belarusians are not scared. They tried to attract labor emigrants from other countries, but it turned out that it is impossible to attract labor migrants with Belarusian salaries.

And if you do not have enough workers, and there is nowhere to get new workers, then there is another way to solve the problem of labor shortage. You need to make those who are still left work more.

The authorities regularly criticize Belarusians for not living up to their ideas about the ideal people. At a meeting with ministers on March 4, Aliaksandr Lukashenka said that there is no problem with labor shortage in Belarus. And the only problem is that Belarusians are lazy and do not work enough. And we need to work more.

“We need to stop complaining about a lack of workers. What does "not enough" even mean? Our labor productivity is three times lower than in Europe. So, we need to work three times harder—put in the effort instead of whining about shortages. We have all the people we need; they just need to get to work if they want decent wages," Lukashenka said.

The Belarusian authorities like simple recipes. Now the working week is 40 hours, but we need to work three times more. Accordingly, 120 hours a week. Or 17 hours a day, including weekends. And the labour problem will be solved immediately, and labor productivity will become like in Europe.

Although, in fact, labor productivity in Europe is higher not because people in Europe work more than Belarusians. If in Belarus the standard working week is 40 hours, then in the Netherlands it lasts 29 hours. In Denmark – 32 hours, in Norway, Germany and Switzerland – 34 hours. That is, in fact, we are talking about a four-day working week there. In no EU country do doctors work one and a half shifts en masse, which is generally normal and accepted practice in Belarus.

Belarusians work more than Europeans. It is our workers who are so valued by European employers.

Low labor productivity is not the fault of Belarusians – it’s the authorities who should take a hard look in the mirror. In Europe, high productivity comes from modern technology, automation, and, most importantly, a well-organized economy.

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