Labor market of the Republic of Kazakhstan: Transformation Stages and Current State

Relevance of the research topic. New economic challenges pose severe problems in the field of employment: the world's economies face such acute problems as growing unemployment and declining employment due to the COVID-19 epidemic. According to the ILO, the economic and labor crisis caused by the pandemic can increase global unemployment to 24.7 million people; for comparison: the global financial crisis of 2008 2009 increased global unemployment to 22 million people. The pandemic has accelerated the process of digitalisation, resulting in new forms and types of employment appearing, which generates reforms in the economic, social and political spheres. The key problems in the field of employment in Kazakhstan continue to be: intersectoral movement of labor due to structural changes in the economy; high level of self-employed in rural areas; changes in labor relations due to the emergence of new types and forms of employment that conflict with current legislation and increase the risks of social insecurity of workers; disproportions in the professional and qualification structure of employment due to the imbalance between the nomenclature of training specialists in educational institutions and their use in practice; weak mobility of labor resources and inefficiency of state employment programs. The peculiarity of the functioning of the labor market in Kazakhstan is a high level of employment and low unemployment with an imbalance in the supply and demand of labor. The study aims to identify the main trends in the labor market transformation in Kazakhstan. The research aims to study the theoretical foundations and practical issues of the formation and development of the Kazakh labor market. The article talks about the ongoing changes in the economy and the labor market, including under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, state support in employment, and identifies critical factors for the future competitiveness of the national labor market. The object of the study is the labor market of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the context of the transformation of the