These are austerity measures: 110 thousand civil servants laid off in Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree last week limiting the number of civil servants employed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs to about one million, reports the news agency Patria.

The number of employees in the ministry, which oversees the police and traffic safety agency, will therefore lay off 110,000 people, CNN Money reports. Russia wants to reduce the state budget by 10 percent due to the economic crisis.

Sanctions have severely hit the Russian economy, which fell by 2.2 percent in the first quarter of this year, and according to IMF estimates, the decline should be 3.8 percent this year, and more than 1 percent in 2016.

Putin cut salaries by 10 percent in March this year, and everything is being saved on, except for the defense forces, i.e. the army.