People seeking jobs at the Wildberries warehouse in the Great Stone Industrial Park near Minsk are queuing overnight and making repeated trips over several days. Users on Threads have been sharing their experiences.
The author of one post arrived for registration at 9 a.m. and found herself 309th in line. According to her, people have been trying to get inside for two or three days, while those who sign up at midnight are given numbers around 80.
Another commenter said that by 5:53 a.m., 57 people were already waiting to register, even though registration does not open until 9 a.m. Judging by comments, just two weeks ago it was possible to get a job within an hour.
The Wildberries warehouse at Great Stone began operations on May 25. It has been running for almost seven months, but the rush to find work has emerged only now. Pay depends on productivity, and the job listing clearly states the salary range: from 1,500 to 6,000 Belarusian rubles a month.
Workers are paid by the piece: they receive a fixed rate for each “pick”, an operation involving an individual item. For example, a worker scans an item with a handheld terminal and places it in a storage bin or box, or retrieves it to fulfil an order. However, commenters say the rate per pick has recently fallen, possibly because of the seemingly endless stream of people looking for work.
According to our information, trainees earn around 20 Belarusian rubles for an hour and a half of work. Based on an eight-hour working day and a five-day week, this would amount to approximately 2,250 rubles a month. Commenters confirm that newcomers at the WB warehouse should not expect to make a fortune:
“Basically, we went there at night a few days ago and got number 25 in the queue. We went home to sleep. Then we came back in the morning and got hired within two hours. We even managed to work for about another three hours. But in the end, over those three hours, each of us made just 45 rubles take-home,” a Minsk resident wrote in the comments.
At the same time, commenters say that experienced workers can earn as much as 250 rubles for a nine- to 10-hour shift. That works out to 25–28 rubles an hour. At the same hourly rate, an eight-hour day would bring in around 4,200–4,700 rubles a month, while working nine to 10 hours a day, five days a week, would amount to approximately 5,250 rubles.
The company may be hiring more people than it needs, expecting some to drop out, which could be pushing earnings down. The author of the post confirms that some of her acquaintances completed registration, showed up for one shift and never returned.
Still, the flow of applicants has not dried up. “The job isn’t exactly easy, but I know for sure that you can’t find this kind of salary in Minsk right now,” one warehouse worker wrote.