‘The socioeconomic stability of Severouralsk depends on many external factors, including the changes in the industrial sector, as the city’s primary employers are our ore mining and woodworking enterprises,’ the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the State Employment Service said to UrBC reporter.

The current recession has made many local businesses, like SUBR-Stroy, Stroymasterural, and Severouralsk concrete goods plant, for instance, produce less and work shorter hours. The Service reports these three enterprises are faced with the threat of large-scale redundancies.

The population of Severouralsk is reported to come to 50,536 people at the moment, of whom 30,900 people constitute the city’s workforce, while the number of the unemployed has gone up from 956 (3.05%) to 1,676 (5.42%) people since the beginning of the year. Out of 30,900 working people, 21,000 are employed within the city.

So far, 7,088 people have applied to the local employment center in order to find a job. 4,350 people have been able to find a new place of employment. The official unemployment level was registered at 5.42% on November 1, 2009.