Kashepov A.V. The Labor Market and Employment in Russia in 2020-2024. Social and labor research. 2024;57(4):43-52.

Abstract

The object of the study is the labor market of the Russian Federation in a broad sense – as a system of market relations in the field of labor and the socio-labor subsystem of economics. The purpose of the study is to analyze the labor market situation, that is, the demand and supply of labor at the macro level, employment and unemployment. The hypothesis of the study is that periods of unemployment and shortage of personnel are changing in the economic development of the country under the influence of economic and demographic factors. The research methods consist in the analysis of scientific literature, official documents, statistical data of the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), the construction of tables and graphs using Excel tools. Results: the main macroeconomical and demographic factors of the balance of the labor sphere, the formation of the current historical maximum of employment and minimum of unemployment are analyzed. It is noted that after overcoming the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, the redistribution of the labor force from «regressive» to «progressive» industries occurs with the maximum intensity after 1991. The growth of real wages has accelerated, although when weighted by labor productivity, it does not seem to be strong enough to compensate for its previously established underestimation. The main number of unfilled vacancies is in the manufacturing industry, construction, transport, public services and the IT sector. Conclusions are drawn about the formation of a systemic shortage of personnel in the Russian Federation as a macroeconomic phenomenon and the need to re-orient the labor economy to study it. Easing and overcoming the shortage of cadres should include, in the short term, helping businesses attract foreign labor migrants, in the long term, slowing down the growth of labor demand by increasing real labor productivity through the introduction of robots and artificial intelligence where possible and economically efficient.