The article is based on the analysis of a wide range of documentary sources reflecting qualitative characteristics of production personnel of regional food industry enterprises. The authors consider the problems of industry staffing in the first years following the end of the Great Patriotic War. The historiography of the topic is represented by publications on various aspects of national industry development, which take into account modern achievements of historical science and development of

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... ource base. However, assessment of qualification and social maturity of human resources, material conditions of work, and influence of all these factors on the efficiency of food industry have not yet been subject of special research. The territorial framework of the study is limited the Kursk region in its borders prior to 1954. On this territory, which was a part of the Central Black Earth economic region of the RSFSR, the food industry was a traditional and developing branch of production, as it had its own potent raw material base. The solution of staffing problems in the post-war years was significantly affected by the region's front-line situation, which has influenced the nature of the tasks to be solved. The main sources are executive directives of government bodies and record keeping materials of enterprises, which characterize the state of the industry human resources. The documentary materials used in preparation of this article have been identified by the authors in the fonds of the Russian State Archive of Economics and in the State Archive of the Kursk Region. They reveal the multi-factorial process of providing the food industry, the main branch of regional economy, with competent employees. The authors have analyzed the content of the documents and presented, on the basis of archival sources, a general overview of the human resources in the industry in the post-war years of reconstruction and modernization. The most informative, from the point of view of the designated topic, are the regional archival fonds. The documentary sources used in the preparation of the article address the situation with personnel in the regional food industry in 1946–48 years quite objectively. Their introduction into scientific use contributes to authoritative depiction of personnel policy implemented locally in the days of post-war economic recovery.