Quality of working life of the employed population in the pre-pandemic and pandemic period (regional aspect)

Changes in social and labor relations, associated with the unprecedented impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the labor market, are not only manifested in the form of negative socio-economic effects (increased unemployment, wage arrears, adaptation problems, reduced working hours, etc.), but also affect the workers’ self-awareness, their perception of the quality of working life. Due to the lack of research, devoted to the development features of this process during the pandemic, the purpose of the work is to assess the changes in the quality of working life that occurred during the coronavirus pandemic from the point of view of subjective perception by employees (in the case of the Vologda Oblast). The information base is the data from the surveys of the Vologda Oblast employed population, conducted in spring 2018 and autumn 2020. We have found that during the pandemic, satisfaction with many aspects of the quality of working life (in particular, completeness of the social package, job content, sanitary-hygiene environment, and psychological climate) does not change. At the same time, there is an increase in the share of respondents satisfied with the ability to combine work and family responsibilities, and social significance of work. Before and during the pandemic, satisfaction ratings with the socio-psychological components of work and characteristics of the work process prevailed, and indicators such as salary and social package had low satisfaction ratings. The research results indicate that the negative impact of the pandemic has been manifested in a decrease in the public confidence in the employment sustainability. The main limitation of the study is related to the use of averaged data on the sample, which excludes the influence of differentiating factors, but allows generally understanding the direction of changes in the pandemic. The practical significance of the work consists in identifying problematic aspects of the quality of working life of the employed population, which should be given increased attention when regulating social and labor relations.