Russian labor market: threats and challenges

Stable functioning of the labor market is the key to the successful development of the economic system of the state. Over the past 5 years, the Russian labor market has faced a pandemic of coronavirus infection and restrictions imposed to counter it. The impact of the pandemic manifested itself in changes in working hours, forms of employment, an increase in the unemployment rate, and workers were forced to adapt to new conditions by mastering additional information system skills. The article shows that for the period 2017-2021, 28% of employees were fired or their working hours were reduced.; the share of the labor force in the Russian economy decreased by 4.56%, and their average age increased to 36.9 years; the share of unemployed without work experience increased in absolute terms by 4.4% and reached 26.1%; the number of unemployed in 2020 amounted to 4316 thousand people, although a year earlier this indicator was at the level of 3461.2 thousand people. Another kind of problem is the lack of career guidance for young people: as of 2021, 26.4% of young people after graduation work in a field unrelated to their profession. The changing geopolitical situation in the world, the introduction of unilateral sanctions by a number of states, the withdrawal of foreign companies from the Russian market led to an outflow of personnel: for the first half of 2022. The article shows this problem by the example of the outflow of IT specialists, which amounted to more than 40 thousand people, with the existing shortage of IT technologies in 170 thousand employees. To stabilize the current situation, the state is taking a number of necessary measures aimed at supporting the affected industries, spheres, and personnel in the Russian economy.