Civil servants are laid off: St. Petersburg railways minus 15% of the workforce, Irkutsk region up to 37% according to Fontanka, St. Petersburg governor Alexander Beglob ordered to reduce up to 15% of employees in budgetary institutions, from municipal committees to schools. The work should be completed by April. The reason is the reduction of city treasury expenses by 70.1 billion rubles in 2026. The hole in the municipality's budget, according to the publication, this year may reach 190 billion. The heads of the institutions refer to the order "Optimizing the staffing table in terms of vacancies". The publication's anonymous interlocutor described the task as follows: to reduce, "at the limit", by 15%, and at the same time save and fill the labor market, where there is a shortage of personnel, and "not only in St. Petersburg." The picture is the same in the regions. In the Nizhnyelmsk urban district in the Irkutsk region, by the end of the year, they plan to cut 37% of the staff, including night guards in schools, kindergartens and cultural centers, as well as employees who service the city's infrastructure. The head of the district, Pavel Berzovsky, explained it simply: there are big problems with the budget. The technical staff of social institutions in the Chonsky district will also be dismissed. The mechanism is simple. Federal spending moves in favor of security, regional deficits grow, as we wrote earlier, and savings come from the most flexible section, the wage fund. The claim about "filling the labor market" sounds rational, but in practice, the vacancies are not only reduced: security guards, technical teams and infrastructure workers leave systems that are already reduced to a minimum. In the past, St. Petersburg has already cut payments to large families and expenses for moving shared apartments, so downsizing becomes the next step in the same line. The consequences for the citizens are twofold. The rest of the workers in schools, kindergartens and cultural institutions will receive a greater load for the same salary, and the residents will face worse functioning services.

Civil servants are laid off: St. Petersburg railways minus 15% of the workforce, Irkutsk region up to 37% according to Fontanka, St. Petersburg governor Alexander Beglob ordered to reduce up to 15% of employees in budgetary institutions, from municipal committees to schools. The work should be completed by April. The reason is the reduction of city treasury expenses by 70.1 billion rubles in 2026. The hole in the municipality's budget, according to the publication, this year may reach 190 billion. The heads of the institutions refer to the order "Optimizing the staffing table in terms of vacancies". The publication's anonymous interlocutor described the task as follows: to reduce, "at the limit", by 15%, and at the same time save and fill the labor market, where there is a shortage of personnel, and "not only in St. Petersburg." The picture is the same in the regions. In the Nizhnyelmsk urban district in the Irkutsk region, by the end of the year, they plan to cut 37% of the staff, including night guards in schools, kindergartens and cultural centers, as well as employees who service the city's infrastructure. The head of the district, Pavel Berzovsky, explained it simply: there are big problems with the budget. The technical staff of social institutions in the Chonsky district will also be dismissed. The mechanism is simple. Federal spending moves in favor of security, regional deficits grow, as we wrote earlier, and savings come from the most flexible section, the wage fund. The claim about "filling the labor market" sounds rational, but in practice, the vacancies are not only reduced: security guards, technical teams and infrastructure workers leave systems that are already reduced to a minimum. In the past, St. Petersburg has already cut payments to large families and expenses for moving shared apartments, so downsizing becomes the next step in the same line. The consequences for the citizens are twofold. The rest of the workers in schools, kindergartens and cultural institutions will receive a greater load for the same salary, and the residents will face worse functioning services.