State policy in the field of ensuring employment in the agricultural sector of the Bulgarian economy (1989–2007)

Ensuring the stable socio-economic development of Bulgaria, improving the demographic and infrastructural situation of rural areas and the well-being of villagers are possible primarily under the condition of increasing employment of the rural population level. However, the significant mismatch between the demand and supply of the agricultural labor market, and the lack of competitiveness of agricultural products in most of its sales markets, had a negative impact, first of all, on the efficiency of the use of labor and the differentiation of its activities in the agricultural sphere. Thus, the use of hired labor, the number of hired workers, mobility of the labor force in the labor market, and employment of the population in the agricultural sector of the economy for the period 2000–2007 in Bulgaria decreased by an average of 30% according to each of the above indicators. As a result, a significant and uncontrolled migration of labor resources in the agricultural sector negatively affected the food security of the country as a whole. Taking into account the above-mentioned problem, an urgent issue at the current stage of the development of the agrarian sector of the economy is the formation of effective diversification of the employment of labor resources. This, first of all, provided for the disclosure of the socio-economic essence, definition, characterization, and development of ways to increase the effectiveness of the diversification of labor force employment in the agricultural sector. As a result of the research, we established that there were different approaches to the interpretation of the content of effective state policy in the field of employment. The current state of employment of the population of Bulgaria was primarily characterized by a sharp decrease in the demand for labor, the closure or temporary suspension of the activities of enterprises, the reduction of employees, and part-time working hours. As a result, the number of unemployed increased, which was directly caused by the difficult political and socio-economic situation in Bulgaria. All this substantiated the relevance of this study.