Precarious employment in the Russian Federation: the state and directions of reduction

The article analyzes the results of implementation of the project “Precarity of employment in the Russian Federation: the state and directions of reduction”. The development of foreign and Russian studies of precarious employment has been systematized, and the contribution of the Russian scientists who have been at the forefront of studying this problem is shown. The specifics of the manifestation and spread of employment precarity in Russia is disclosed. There is analyzed the contribution of the Project to the development of research and practical measures for reduction of instable employment. The article considers the organizational, technical and socio-economic characteristics of precarious employment, its forced character for employees, contradicting interests of the employed, the capital and the bourgeois state in identifying and regulating precarious employment. The relationship between the instability of modern societies and the instability of employment is shown. It is substantiated that a special theory of precarious employment is being formed in Russia, due to the specifics of the emergence and development of the Russian capitalism. There are presented the practical results of the Project consisting in development of new indicators for its identification, segmentation of the Russian labor market depending on the prevalence of signs of employment precarity. A quantitative estimation of the extent of precarious employment in Russia has been carried out. There have been studied its characteristics on Internet platforms and the skills of workers demanded by employers under the conditions of precarious employment. The author proposes amendments to the Russian labor legislation aimed at legal regulation of new non-standard forms of employment and bringing them out of the “shadow”. There are proposed directions for a further research on precarious employment in Russia: development of a national program for reducing instability and increasing efficiency of employment, classification of its forms, and a roadmap for government actions to reduce precarious employment.