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Most employed Russians are afraid of losing their jobs, a recent poll by the National Public Opinion Studies Center VTsIOM revealed.

According to the survey, which was conducted in mid March among 1,600 respondents in Russia’s 153 cities, towns and settlements, 66 percent of the country’s working residents share the fear of becoming unemployed, the Center’s site www.wciom.ru said.

Among those who share this outlook, most are aged from 25-59 (up to 66 percent), while the respondents aged from 18-24 and elderly people aged over 60 show less fear of losing jobs (55 and 57 percent respectively).

According to the survey, among the respondents who are prepared to seek employment in other towns or settlements in case of losing their present job, 21 percent would do it in the region in which they reside, while 8 percent said they would search for jobs in any town or city in Russia. 4 percent said they would look for employment abroad, as opposed to 10 percent who were prepared to leave Russia for the sake of a job in the similar poll last year.

Almost a fifth of the surveyed, or 19 percent, said they are prepared to undergo training in order to change occupations if they were to lose their present job, and 11 percent revealed they would go into business, the poll showed. Interestingly, 8 percent do not mind taking a job which requires a lower qualification, while 5 percent said they would accept employment with a lower salary.

The survey revealed that only 21 percent of the working respondents remained without a stable job for up to three months in the past five years, while 76 percent never experienced this for the period.

When asked how they assess the unemployment level in Russia, almost half (48 percent) said they consider it as high, while 6 percent expressed the opposite opinion. Residents of Siberia and the Russian Far East proved to be most pessimistic, with 70 and 66 percent of them deeming the unemployment rate as high, respectively. Interestingly, the residents of these two territories also assessed the unemployment level in their own regions as high as well (73 and 64 percent of those polled correspondingly).

According to the survey, 31 percent of those polled believe the unemployment level in the country is moderate. Finally, only 3 percent see it as non-existent - the number of the respondents sharing this view has risen slightly by 2 percent as compared to the similar poll conducted last year.