Medvedev: soaring Russian unemployment is alarming

President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday he was deeply alarmed by Russia's soaring unemployment, which he said was rising far faster than officials had forecast.

Russia's $1.7 trillion economy is heading into recession and employers are slashing jobs as the economic crisis bites after a decade of explosive growth.

Medvedev, speaking to members of a think-tank that advises him on policies, said Russia had 2.2 million people officially registered as unemployed.

"We are deeply alarmed by the number of registered unemployed, which has already reached levels which we counted on reaching by year end," he said at a meeting with analysts from the Moscow-based Institute of Contemporary Development.

Medvedev is chairman of the board of trustees at the institute, some of whose researchers have criticised hardliners close to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

There was little sign of direct criticism on Tuesday and Medvedev simply set out his concern about unemployment, which he said was about 8.5 percent of the economically active population, still lower than the 13.3 percent reached after Russia's 1998 economic crisis.

Russia's leaders are concerned that wage cuts and job losses could undermine the stability which former Kremlin chief Putin prided himself on achieving after the chaos of the 1990s.

Tatyana Maleva, an expert on social problems, told Medvedev that the crisis threatened a large group of Russians who are too poor to be seen as middle class but who are not classified as within the poorest 10 percent of the population.

She said about one fifth of Russia's population could be considered middle class. The Kremlin has said it will protect the middle class from the crisis as they are the natural supporters of Medvedev and Putin.