Two more foreign companies have stopped working in Russia during the last three days: the French cosmetics brand L'Occitane has closed its stores, and the Finnish paint manufacturer Teknos has shut down its plant. These two companies had at least a thousand employees who are likely to soon lose their jobs.
Although some international companies, such as Google, JPMorgan, or Visa, have moved or offered relocation to their russian offices, the forecasts are disappointing. Even the mayor of Moscow has already publicly admitted that due to the exit of foreign companies: he expects about 200,000 unemployed residents of the capital and prepares retraining opportunities and community service jobs for them.
Those who work in russian companies will have (perhaps, even more significant) problems. Russian business is suspending all its new projects. Earlier representatives of the hotel and restaurant business have made such announcements, and now the largest food retailers in russia are suspending the opening of new outlets. Consequently, the number of new vacancies in the labor market also reduces.
In addition, some Russian companies are on the verge of default due to sanctions or are losing opportunities to optimize taxes in offshore zones. For example, this has happened with the financial "daughter" of the Russian oil and gas tanker operator Sovcomflot.
Even the Russian Central Bank has acknowledged that the country's economy faces problems with production due to sanctions on imports, exports, and logistics. These problems will also hit the employees of these companies. Therefore, analysts' estimates of 2 million unemployed may well come true.
Where production does not stop but finds substitutes for imported components or raw materials, the price of the final product will rise. Russians have been already warned that bread is becoming more expensive – 80-90% of bakeries in russia worked on European equipment, suppliers of which do not currently work with the country.
And finally, the opportunities to distract from the disappointing economic realities are dwindling for russians: on Monday, Paramount studio stopped broadcasting its entertainment channels, such as Paramount Comedy, MTV, and Nickelodeon, and the Spotify disappeared from the Russian AppStore.