• Russia's railway industry is in the midst of a big downturn, according to one Russian research firm.
• Investment in Russia's railways is being slashed by nearly a third next year, TASS reported.
• It complicates Russia's trade with China, which has relied partly on rail transport.

One of Russia's key trading channels with China is facing serious snags. That's a result of burdens stemming from Russia's war-driven economy, which have fueled a big slowdown in the nation's rail industry — a vital means of trade between Moscow and Beijing.

Russia's rail industry is in its worst slowdown since the Great Financial Crisis, with the downtrend "still going strong," according to an analysis from the Russian research firm MMI Research. Freight volume transported by Russian Railways, Russia's state-owned rail system, slumped 5% in the first 11 months of 2024 compared with the same period last year, according to MMI data cited by Bloomberg.

The slowdown is driven in part by Russia's need to ship war-related materials, which have worsened supply bottlenecks and slowed the trade of key commodities, like coal and aluminum, the outlet reported.

Investment in Russia's railroads is also being slashed, partly due to high interest rates in the nation, according to a report from the state-owned news agency TASS. Russian Railways said it would earmark just 890 billion rubles, or $8.5 billion, for its investment program next year, a 30% cut from investment in 2024, TASS reported.

The firm is mulling whether it should cut investment by another third through the end of the decade, the Russian outlet Kommersant reported. Russian Railways did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

The changes spell bad news for Russia's trade with China, which has leaned on railway transport amid Western sanctions. Russia poured billions into its railways earlier this year partly to accommodate its increased trade with China.

The changes also speak to the growing costs of Russia's war against Ukraine, which have produced myriad economic problems for Moscow.

Russia's central bank raised interest rates to a record 21% earlier this year in an effort to lower sky-high inflation. The bank kept interest rates level in their policy decision last week, due to concerns about "excessive cooling" in Russia's wartime economy, according to the nation's top central banker.

• Companies are cracking down on job applicants trying to use AI to boost their prospects.
• 72% of leaders said they were raising their standards for hiring a candidate, a Workday report found.
• Recruiters say standards will tighten further as firms themselves use AI to weed out candidates.

AI was supposed to make the job hunt easier, but job seekers should expect landing a new gig harder in the coming years, thanks to companies growing increasingly suspicious of candidates using bots to get their foot in the door.

Hiring managers, keen to sniff out picture-perfect candidates that have used AI to augment their applications, are beginning to tighten their standards to interview and ultimately hire new employees, labor market sources told Business Insider.

Recruiters said that has already made the job market more competitive — and the selection will get even tighter as more companies adopt their own AI tools to sift through applicants.

In the first half of the year, 72% of business leaders said they were raising their standards for hiring applicants, according to a report from Workday. Meanwhile, 77% of companies said they intended to scale their use of AI in the recruiting process over the next year.

63% of recruiters and hiring decision makers said they already used AI as part of the recruiting process, up from 58% last year, a separate survey by Employ found.

Jeff Hyman, a veteran recruiter and the CEO of Recruit Rockstars, says AI software is growing more popular among hiring managers to weed through stacks of seemingly ideal candidates.

"Ironically, big companies are using AI to go through that stack, that AI has brought first place, and it's becoming this ridiculous tit-for-tat battle," Hyman told BI in an interview. "I would say human judgment … is what rules the day, but certainly, we use a lot of software to reduce a stack from 500 to 50, because you got to start somewhere," he later added.

Tim Sackett, the president of the tech staffing firm HRU Technical Resources, says some firms are beta-testing AI software that can allow companies to detect fraud on résumés — a development he thinks will make the job market significantly more competitive. That technology could become mainstream as soon as mid-2025, he speculated, given how fast AI tech is accelerating.

"It's just going to get worse," Sackett said of companies being more selective of new hires. "I mean, if more candidates become really used to utilizing AI to help them match a job better, to network better, it's just going to happen."

The interview-to-offer ratio at enterprise companies declined to 64% in July of this year, according to Employ's survey, which indicates companies are interviewing fewer candidates before making a hiring decision.

"Recruiters are scrutinizing candidates more closely," Hyman adds. "My candidate interviews have become longer and more in-depth, designed to truly test a candidate's abilities beyond a polished résumé."

Inundated by AI

Employers aren't big fans of AI as a tool for candidates to get a leg up. That's partly because it's led to hiring systems being flooded with applications sent using AI, Sackett and Hyman said, which has made hiring decisions way harder.

Workday found that job applications grew at four times the pace of job openings in the first half of this year, with recruiters processing 173 million applications, while there were just 19 million job requisitions.

Having too many candidates for a position was the third most common problem recruiters faced in 2024, Employ added.

Hyman estimates the number of applications he reviews has doubled over the last year. Some of the more lucrative job postings are seeing close to 1,000 applications, he said, whereas they would have attracted 100-200 applications before the pandemic.

"I mean, a stack so big, that you can't even go through it, it's just not even possible to spend that kind of time," he said.

Candidates sending in applications spruced up with AI has also made it harder to determine who can actually do the job.

Sackett says he's seen an increase in "false positive" hiring, where a worker is hired and is quickly let go of their position when it becomes clear they're unable to do the job.

"I think what hiring managers are concerned about: Is this CV real when I'm talking to this person? Am I talking to the real person or are they using AI in the background?" Sackett said. He recalled one client he worked with who realized multiple candidates responded to interview questions in the same way, likely because they were using AI to write their responses. "So I think people just want to know that I'm getting what I think I'm getting."

• Many Gen Xers are caring for both their children and parents, and it's hurting retirement savings.
• 56% of Gen X investors were financially supporting either their parents or their kids, Nationwide found.
• The financial burden of supporting two groups has some Gen Xers doubting if they'll retire at all.

Steve Mullen, 54, is being pulled three ways.

On the one hand, he and his wife are caregivers for each of their mothers, which has required them to pitch in up to 40 hours of caregiving a week and tens of thousands of dollars over the course of decades. On the other hand, they are still supporting their college-age son, who needs help with housing and $25,000 for tuition every year. All the while, he runs his own PR business, in which making more money is a "constant" concern.

At times, he said, the burden is extraordinary.

"It's incredibly stressful," he told Business Insider, adding that money was always a back-of-mind worry, despite being relatively financially stable. "I just pray we don't go into another one of these periods where my mother's in the hospital."

His situation is becoming increasingly common among Gen Xers — a generation sandwiched between their retiring parents and still-dependent children — and, more frequently, needing to support both groups at once. It is a dilemma that has put Gen X further behind in saving for retirement compared to other groups, financial planning experts told BI.

There are signs that the dual burden of needing to support kids and parents is becoming more common. A 2020 study from the AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving found that among Gen Xers who are taking care of a parent, around 50% also have a child under the age of 18. A study conducted by Nationwide showed that 56% are financially supporting either their parents or their kids.

Gen Xers in caretaking roles are more likely to show signs of financial strain. Of those who were taking care of a child or a parent, 21% said they had taken out significant amounts of debt, and 20% said they were unable to save for retirement, per the Nationwide study.

According to a separate survey of 35- to 60-year-olds conducted by Carewell, 75% of those taking care of both a parent and a child said they struggled to save for retirement, while 63% said they lived paycheck to paycheck.

Gen Xers speaking with BI said they doubted if they would ever retire, mostly because they were set back by financial obligations related to caregiving.

40% of Gen Xers also expect to work part-time after they retire, a Prudential Financial survey found.

Julie, a woman in her fifties based in Ohio, said she had spent over $100,000 taking care of her mother over the course of 15 years. She has less than $70,000 saved for retirement, well below what's recommended by financial advisors, who say you should have around six times your annual salary saved by the time you hit 50.

"I'm exhausted financially, and, frankly, I didn't consider growing up I'd be the financial rock of my family," she said.

The sandwiched generation

By some measures, Gen Xers are even more ill-prepared for retirement than baby boomers. According to surveys conducted by Prudential Financial, the median retirement savings for 55-year-olds is just under $48,000, with 18% having saved nothing at all as of last year.

Meanwhile, two-thirds of 55-year-olds said they were afraid of outliving their savings. That's the highest level among any age group of Prudential's 2024 survey, with 59% of 65-year-olds saying they worried they would outlive their savings.

Joe Wadford, a Bank of America economist, thinks Gen Xers are uniquely burdened by taking care of their parents and children at the same time, largely because more children are living at home than in previous generations.

Around 57% of men and 55% of women between the ages of 18 and 24 lived at home with their parents in 2022, according to US Census data published this year. That compares to 52% of men and 35% of women in that age range who were living with their parents in 1960.

Satayan Mahajan, the CEO of the financial advisory firm Datalign Advisory, said that caring for parents and children simultaneously was one reason his Gen X clients commonly cited for falling behind in preparing for retirement.

Market crashes during formative times in their career, such as during the early 2000s and the Great Financial Crisis, are another reason why many have less saved up.

"This sandwiched portion of Gen Xers are really in a lot of trouble. I mean, I have to say — and I don't want to sound so negative — but I think they're in a tough spot and they have a bunch of things that hit them pretty hard," Mahajan said.

And the outlook remains uncertain for Gen X. While boomers are estimated to pass on around $80 trillion in wealth, most of that money looks primed to head to millennials, not Gen X, Mahajan said.

"They're kind of in an awkward spot," he added. "And so there's a large swath of Gen Xers who may be in a bit of a lurch."

Uncertainty is also swirling around the availability of government retirement funds. Social Security could be depleted as soon as 2033, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, when most Gen Xers are already retired or in their final decade of work.

Brandon Goldstein, a financial planner at Prudential, said many Gen Xers still have time to catch up on their retirement savings, though he believes many will have to work longer than may want to.

More older Americans are already deciding to postpone their retirement. 19% of adults 65 and over were still employed in 2023, according to a Pew Research analysis.

"For someone to be completely in a spot where they don't need to work again or they feel very comfortable, they're probably going to still have to work a little bit," Goldstein said.

• Russia's labor shortage has businesses turning to teens and retirees to fill positions.
• Openings for workers as young as 14 or older than 55 have jumped.
• The nation was short around 5 million workers last year, Russia's Academy of Sciences estimated.

Russia's wartime economy is dealing with a difficult labor shortage, and the problem is pushing companies to broaden the age range of new hires as they look to fill their ranks.

An analysis cited by the Russian news site Nakanune showed that job openings tailored to "young applicants" — as young as 14 — soared 119% year-over-year in the first quarter. That adds to last year's 289% increase, with openings for young workers rising from 14,500 to 42,000, the analysis found.

In catering and retail, the demand for workers between the ages of 16 and 18 has doubled, Bloomberg reported, citing an analysis from the Russian ad agency Avito.

Demand is also growing for older workers. Openings for specialists over the age of 55 climbed 65% in the culture and education sectors in the third quarter, while openings for specialists in the services sector rose 12%, according to a study viewed by the Russian state-owned news agency TASS.

The average age of specialists has also climbed by three to six years since 2022, per Bloomberg, citing an analysis from the Russian recruiting agency SuperJob.

Russia has also dialed back rules to allow younger people to work, or to allow retirement-age people to continue working.

Last year, Putin approved the employment of workers as young as 14 in some circumstances, though Russia's legal working age is still technically set at 16 years old.

In 2018, Russia raised the retirement age from 60 to 65 for men and from 55 to 63 for women. The nation also plans on raising pension payments for working retirees early next year, with retirement-age people who choose to work potentially receiving an average minimum increase of 1.3 million rubles a year, or $12,264, according to estimates from Russia's Deputy Prime Minister.

Russia's working-age population took a hit in 2022, when millions of Russians fled the nation after the start of the war in Ukraine. The nation is short around 2 million workers, Bloomberg reported, citing an analysis from FinExpertiza, one of the nation's largest auditors. Last year, the Russian Academy of Sciences estimated the nation was short around 5 million workers.

Meanwhile, around 73% of businesses are experiencing a staffing shortage, according to polls conducted by Russia's central bank.

• Nouriel Roubini thinks higher inflation and slower growth are coming on the back of Trump's policies.
• He pointed to Trump's plans to levy steep tariffs and deport millions, which could stoke price growth.
• The pace of inflation could nearly double to 5% in the coming years, Roubini speculated.

Trump's policies are raising the risk for a handful of troubling economic consequences, according to one of Wall Street's most pessimistic forecasters.

Nouriel Roubini — also known as "Dr. Doom" for his bombastic and frequently bearish takes on the economy — said he believes some of Trump's policies could raise prices and slow growth in the US. That could involve inflation rising as high as 5% in the coming years,

he said speaking to Bloomberg on Wednesday, about double the current pace of price growth in the US.

Roubini said interest rates could also rise due to Trump's economic agenda. He predicted that long-end bond yields, which partly reflect interest rate expectations in the economy, could reach as high as 8%.

"Some of the economic policies may lead to higher economic growth," Roubini said, pointing to Trump's push to loosen regulation and slash the corporate tax rate. "But unfortunately, many of the other policies have the implication of higher inflation and lower economic growth."

Roubini pointed in particular to Trump's tariff plan, with the president-elect vowing to levy steep tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada, and China, and a 10%-20% blanket tariff on most US imports. Experts have said the cost of tariffs could be passed onto buyers, with some businesses already floating future price increases.

Trump has also promised to slash corporate taxes and eliminate taxes in other areas, such as income from tips, overtime, and Social Security benefits. Roubini suggested that could spell trouble given the overarching picture of the US debt, as debt is inherently inflationary.

Trump's agenda could raise the national debt by as much as $15.5 trillion from 2026 through 2035, according to an analysis from the Committee for Responsible Federal Budget.

Trump's plan to carry out mass deportations could also impact the outlook for inflation and growth, Roubini noted, given that immigration has bolstered the workforce and helped tame inflation.

"So definitely mass deportation is stagflationary," he added.

Roubini has repeatedly warned that Trump's second term in office could raise the risk of stagflation, a scenario involving stubborn prices, sluggish economic growth, and steep unemployment. Some analysts describe the situation as even worse than a recession due to the chaos that unfolded the last time the US was in the midst of a stagflationary crisis.

Other forecasters have also warned of the potential for higher inflation in Trump's second term. Deutsche Bank analysts floated a potential inflation increase in 2025, adding it was possible the Fed may not lower interest rates to keep high prices in check.

Trump, though, has repeatedly disputed the idea that his policies are inflationary and said he would lower prices for Americans. He enacted tariffs in his first term as president without a significant inflation increase, but experts say that his policies this time around are far more wide-reaching, explaining the difference in inflation forecasts.

"Trump will once again cut taxes and unleash American energy to lower prices on groceries and other goods when we send him back to the White House," Taylor Rogers, a spokesperson from the Republican National Committee, previously told BI.

• Trump's plans to deport millions of immigrants could exacerbate America's demographic challenges.
• The US birth rate has been falling, which economists say could hobble the labor market and economic growth.
• Trump's plan could result in an older population and fewer workers, economists told BI.

Donald Trump's plan for a sweeping immigration crackdown involving mass deportations has been described as potentially inflationary, but economists say it could exacerbate another problem America faces: an aging population.

Immigration was thought to be one solution to Americans having fewer kids, and reversing the trend could result in a larger population of older people and lead to a smaller workforce, economists have said.

Demographic shifts are likely to be greater if immigration is significantly curtailed, Alan Berube, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said.

During his campaign, the President-elect promised to deport unauthorized migrants, of which there are around 11 million in the US, according to the Center for Migration Studies. Trump also promised to ban refugees from some countries and reinstate travel bans he implemented in his first term, which could restrict immigration flows.

If immigration were to fall to "low" levels—which the Brookings Institution defines as 350,000-600,000 net migrants per year—the US population could drop by 4% by the end of the century, Berube said, citing a 2023 Brookings projection. If the US were to completely close its borders, the population could drop 32% by 2100.

Berube told BI that the effects of the immigration policy Trump ultimately pursues in his term would likely fall between those two estimates. He added that this could create issues for the rest of the population, which will need to support a larger cohort of older people.

In the group's low immigration scenario, America's 65-and-older population would make up 57% of the working-age population by the end of the century, up from 28% in 2022.

"The US workforce right now is aging more rapidly than at any point in our country's history," Berube said. "Even as our population ages, if we cut off the supply of immigrant labor, the challenges that go along with an aging population and an aging workforce are going to get much more serious."

Trump and the Republican party have said that the goal of deportations would be, in part, to drive down the cost of healthcare, housing, and education for Americans.

"The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver," Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump's camp, told BI in an email when asked about the potential impacts of Trump's immigration policy.

Economic challenges

Fewer people coming into the US would likely be a headwind to growth, given that the birth rate has been trending down for decades. The general fertility rate hit a record low in 2023, with just under 55 births for every 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Berube said immigration is thought of as a band-aid to demographic problems since immigrants tend to be younger, which offsets the aging population. Immigrants also tend to work at higher rates, supplementing the job market.

The US had around 8.3 million unauthorized immigrant workers in 2022, according to data from the Pew Research Center.

Certain sectors are particularly at risk of labor shortages in the event of fewer migrant workers, according to José Torres, a senior economist at Interactive Brokers.

Sectors with a high proportion of undocumented immigrant workers, like construction and agriculture, could see the number of workers fall. Those industries are already facing steep labor shortages, with construction in particular facing a shortage of 200,000-400,000 workers each year.

While Trump's pro-market policies will offset some of the economic impact, Torres thinks GDP could fall by half a percentage point once Trump implements his immigration crackdown.

"When you have immigrant flows, that's growth positive. That lifts your GDP in the short run because you have all these folks that are coming in. They're coming for economic opportunity, they're working really hard," Torres told BI. "So that's going to be a headwind to the labor market overall," he said of deportations.

Todd Buccholz, a former White House economist during the George H.W. Bush Administration, thinks Trump's immigration policies will have a mild economic impact, partly because he doubts immigration will fall over the long term.

"I think it's important that the country recognize the aging of the population, the lower fertility rate," Buccholz said. "If you say, no one else is coming in, the gate is locked and no one else can play … we're going to be shrinking and have more senior citizens and fewer people to support them. I think that raises real issues," he added.