Russian consumer spending showed little sign of picking up in March as unemployment jumped to the highest in more than three years. The jobless rate rose for the first time in four months, climbing to 6 percent from 5.8 percent in February, the Federal Statistics Service in Moscow said on Tuesday. The median of 14 estimates in a Bloomberg survey was for an increase to 5.9 percent. Retail sales fell 5.8 percent from a year earlier after a revised 4.3 percent drop, while real wages slipped 3 percent. That was worse than the median forecasts compiled by Bloomberg. “Consumption will likely remain depressed thanks to elevated inflation, rising unemployment and low income growth,” Otkritie Capital economists said in a research note before the data release. Households are enduring the brunt of Russia’s longest recession in two decades after authorities responded to the collapse in crude prices with spending cutbacks […]