Newsweek poses a bigger danger to the country's economy than the sanctions it has faced over the last year. Weafer, who has been reporting on Russia's economy since 1998, said that there had been predictions more than a decade ago of workforce shortages by the start of 2020 and warnings that working-age people could drop by 10 percent. "Such a low labor unemployment rate against a very kind of sluggish economy means that the costs for companies are going to go up and it will be an inflation booster," said Weafer, "it only means one thing—costs are going to go up