The article is devoted to the study of youth employment and is focused on the problem of job retention in the period of economic recession and labor market decline. The article analyzes new approaches to the study of youth employment such as the change of its nature and the shift from long-term employment in one company to short-term projects, which increases the risk of young people joining the list of precariously employed people – a category of people currently called “a new dangerous class”. The conducted study demonstrates the disparity of positions, occupied by the young people with similar education. 50,4% of young people hold relatively high-paid positions; 32,0% – lower-paid positions with career and pay raise prospects; 17.6% – positions without financial and career prospects. Another important point that determines job disparity is associated with the type of employment registration. The study has revealed that only 70.5% of young people work on the basis of a permanent contract. All other forms define the short-term and unstable nature of employment relations. The purpose of the research is to determine the factors which promote employment stability in this difficult period. The novelty of the research is in testing the influence of different factors – institutional, socio-demographic and economic. The problem of job disparity for the employees with equal professional education is also discussed. It has been revealed that the confidence in job retention depends on the level and the quality of professional education which is influenced by the efforts made by the youth; on the demand for professionals specializing in a particular field which is increasingly determined by the type of economic development; and on the social capital interpreted as useful connections, which is largely determined by the existing mechanism of vertical mobility. The informational base of the analysis was provided by the data of the monitoring representative for the whole Russian population, conducted by the Institute of Social Analysis and Forecast of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) in 2015–2016; and by a special research of the employed youth conducted by the RANEPA Centre for Economics of Lifelong Education in May-June 2016 (2175 respondents). The obtained data will be useful for the specialists in the field of labor and employment and for those who work in the field of management and form and implement the policy of youth employment
Keywords
social capital, types of economic activity, youth employment, labor market, quality of professional education, youth employment strategies