The Russian labor market has been warned to expect higher levels of unemployment in the coming months by the country's finance minister.

Alexei Kudrin claimed that more Russian companies will be reducing their workforces during the beginning of 2010 as they look to boost efficiency, despite the European country's government officially declaring that the recession is over.

Russia's unemployment rate rose to a four-month of 8.1 per cent in November - equivalent to 6.1 million individuals - according to data released by the Federal Statistics Service.

This rise was greater than predicted in a Bloomberg survey of economists, which forecasted a median rise to 7.8 per cent from the 7.7 per cent recorded in October.

Earlier this week, the Institute for the Economy in Transition produced a report obtained by Dow Jones revealing that Russian organizations may cut more jobs in December than almost any month in the past decade.