According to Foreign Policy , the labor shortage is due to demographic decline, mass emigration after the start of a full-scale war against Ukraine, and the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of men, while automation and digitalization, which could compensate for the labor shortage, are developing too slowly. The defense industry is particularly acutely experiencing a shortage of personnel. The military-industrial complex alone lacks 400-500 thousand workers, including more than 100 thousand engineers and other highly qualified specialists. However, experts note that these steps only partially compensate for the shortage of personnel and do not increase the total number of working-age population. Meanwhile, attempts to increasingly rely on foreign workers are increasingly being met with rising nationalist sentiment and restrictive migration policies,” the publication writes.