Vladimir Putin said that he does not like the situation with the high salaries of the leadership of state-owned companies. The head of state brought his point of view on this subject during an interview with TASS for the project “20 Questions to Vladimir Putin”.

“To be honest, it hurts and jars me, I agree,” Putin said, answering the question of monetary rewards for top managers of state-owned companies. However, the President noted that the situation is not as simple as it might seem at first glance.

He explained that the issue of management salaries is due to the market value of the services of a number of employees. As the head of state said, top managers of companies with state participation “hire a large number of foreign specialists, they work efficiently, and they are worth something on the market, on the international labor market.”

They are forced to "take them and pay them the salary that their services, their work are on the international labor market," Putin emphasized, noting that if they are paid, they should "get more as bosses." Putin cited civil aviation pilots as an analogy.

“We were forced to take pilots of foreign companies, especially those with experience in Boeing, on European cars. We were forced to raise their salary levels to European and American standards, ”the president explained.

The president also said that military pilots now often transfer to civil aviation as co-pilot because of attractive salaries.

“Immediately this skewed the labor market, including the Ministry of Defense. Therefore, it is the same here, ”Putin stated.

Note that the president’s attention was paid to the situation with salaries of top managers and government officials. During a direct line with the head of state on June 20, 2019, Putin expressed the opinion that the salaries of a number of leaders cannot be drastically reduced.

"What could be an ambush: if we now take and sharply lower the salaries of officials, ministers, or even heads of large state-owned companies, we simply will not find enough qualified personnel - they will all scatter to private offices or go abroad," Putin said .

At the same time, the president indicated that he would very much like "that the income of an ordinary employee increase." He pointed out that the difference in salaries should not be too big.

“The difference should not be colossal. We should think about this, ”Putin stated.

Shortly after these events, a bill was submitted to the State Duma for consideration that would limit the maximum level of salaries for heads of state corporations.

The deputies proposed legislatively fixing the maximum allowable difference between the salaries of heads of state-owned companies and employees at around eight times. We are talking about companies in which more than 50% of the authorized capital belongs to the state.

In addition, the same document proposes setting the upper bar for the salaries of the leaders of such companies at the average monthly salary of the President of Russia over the past calendar year.

The document is pending. The State Duma database says that the bill is included in the sample program for April 2020.

According to the “Parliamentary newspaper”, the initiative of the deputies in the government was not supported. The Cabinet of Ministers in a response to the bill indicated that the measures proposed by parliamentarians are excessive and create obstacles to the flexible regulation of wages for workers, the size of which depends on their qualifications, the complexity of the work performed and other factors.

Putin himself said earlier that the Kremlin is concerned about the situation with real incomes of Russians. In another part of the interview “20 Questions to Vladimir Putin,” the head of state dwelt on this issue in detail.

“This, of course, worries us a lot. I am very worried that such stagnation occurred in real incomes of the population, ”the president said, linking this situation with the situation of energy prices. He acknowledged that the situation with population incomes is one of the most key social problems at the moment.

“We must do something. The government must do something in order to push it. There are many ways, ”the head of state said.