SERGEY TSUKHLO: “RUSSIAN COMPANIES WORSENED THEIR ASSESSMENT OF KEY INDICATORS AGAINST THE BACKDROP OF SANCTIONS”

Sergey Tsukhlo, head of the Gaidar Institute's business surveys laboratory, calculated the Industry Adaptability Index and noted a sharp deterioration of Russian companies in Q2. Companies are concerned with the situation with imported components, low demand for products and excessive employment. Forbespublished the results of the survey.

Russian companies have sharply worsened their assessment of the key indicators against the background of the "special operation" and the sanctions war. This follows from the Industry Adaptability (Normality) Index, which is calculated quarterly by the Gaidar Institute based on the business survey findings. Survey participants assess the normality of their operations according to 6 indicators: demand, stocks of finished products and raw materials, number of employees, production capacity, and financial situation.

According to the report, the index fell from 74% to 63% in Q2. The last time the index declined that much was during the 2008-2009 crisis. The assessment of the situation with stocks of raw materials and supplies deteriorated most of all in Q2. The proportion of the enterprises that considered the situation in this segment as normal made 62% as compared to 86% in Q1. In July and August, the situation commenced to stabilize gradually, but only at the expense of the domestically produced components: the level of the companies' satisfaction with their stocks hit 76%. This indicator, in the case of imported materials, was a third as much.

The situation with the demand was one of the painful points for the enterprises. In Q2 the proportion of those who considered the level of the demand for their products to be normal plummeted from 70% to 58%. Moreover, at the beginning of Q3 the situation did not improve. The absolute values of this index are far from the failures of the previous crises, however, according to the report the satisfaction with the demand can continue falling.

Estimates of staffing also plummeted from 72% in January to 64% in April. At the same time, the assessment of surplus employment spiked from a minimum of 2% to a 13-year high of 18%. According to the Gaidar Institute, another factor - lack of personnel - "logically decreased" to 18%. The authors of the report call this result "not a crisis at all": in 2008, the figure was down to 7%.

Nevertheless, the negative changes in assessments of the financial and economic situation of businesses were minimal even in the first months after the launch of the special operation (in Q1 - 90%, in Q2 - 89%, at the beginning of Q3 - 92%).

Companies were satisfied with the availability of production facilities: the indicator grew from 64% in Q1 to 70% in Q2. At the beginning of Q3, the share of such estimations went up to 75%. In addition, the enterprises managed to cope with the deficit of stocks of finished products.

According to the author of the study, Sergey Tsukhlo, in the earlier crises of 2015 and the pandemic 2020, the normality index, on the contrary, showed "surprising resilience”. Now, however, such an assessment by businesses indicates a deeper and more protracted economic crisis, he noted.