Professional Labour Mobility in Russia

Professional adaptation of the workforce to the demands of the labour market in 2013–2020 in Russia reflected the impact that the technological revolution had on this process. The 2018–2020 Coronavirus pandemic years, when there was a reduction in the workforce among office workers, due to forced computerization of their job functions in the process of transferring to remote work, stand out in particular. The profession is a social institution. The professional mobility of the workforce, which is driven by social or technological revolutions, structures society. Meanwhile, the nature and speed of the effects on society are different in both cases. The precipitous exit from professions in the early 1990s, accompanied by vertical mobility, is characteristic of a social revolution, whereas under the influence of the technological revolution between 2012 and 2020, occupational mobility does not exhibit such striking dynamics and is predominantly horizontal in nature. It is important to note that the article considers those in the labour force – the employed and the unemployed – as parts of a single whole, whose search for employment in the labour market is motivated by and subject to the same patterns. The unemployed, as a more mobile part of the labour force, are the first to ‘guess’ the vector of change in the structure of employment. The phenomenon of the same pattern of inter-professional mobility of the employed and the unemployed was noticed when observing the labor market in the 1990s. It was indicative of a structural shift. It was the occupational groups in which this phenomenon was observed that were more frequently demonstrating vertical mobility. Similarly, a decrease in employment and unemployment in agriculture, along with an increase in both among the higher-skilled labour force, indicated the emergence of a post-industrial society in Russia in 2012–2020. These changes in professional employment are social in nature, as they are accompanied by changes in living standards and lifestyles; not only the material situation but mindset is changing, leading to new demands for quality of life. This conclusion can be drawn from Rosstat data on 35 occupations, and on this basis calculations and diagrams were made, with absolute figures provided.