The Impact of the 2014-2016 economic crisis on the employment of Russian

Abstract

The paper provides an analysis of the impact of the economic crisis on the Russian employment and is based on the results of the studies carried out by the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2009—2016 and the Federal State Statistics Service’s data. The authors explain that, according to the employment situation, the 2014—2016 crisis was a budget cri- sis and consumption crisis rather than an economic crisis. Basic labor rights have become less respected through- out the country, the average length of the workweek has increased, and even nominal hourly labor cost has decreased. The situation of the most vulnerable social and economic groups — those employed in the private sector, especially in commerce and public services as well as people living in small cities and rural area — has particularly deteriorated. Significant changes were observed in the Moscow labor market where the increasing workload was accompanied by the reduction of gap between the Moscow labor cost and the labor cost in other regions. By the 2016 autumn, the number of workers whose rights were not fully observed made up half of the employed population; the risk of job loss is high in this particular group. All the trends mentioned above are reflected in the Russian mass consciousness where a controversy between the employers and the employees plays an increasingly important role.