Globalization of Employment Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

In 2019-2020 the global economy faced an unprecedented transition to remote employment. New information technologies have made this transition possible, but prior to the pandemic it was implemented with great hesitation even in technologically advanced companies, whose activities are focused on data analysis. The sudden push toward remote work has formed a new reality of the global labor market - mass foreign outsourcing of labor in a wide range of professions. New trends are adding additional challenges for the legal regulation of labor relations at the level of states and international organizations (ILO and UN). The article asks what the socio-economic consequences of the surge in remote employment on a state and international level will be. The methodology of the study consists in conducting cross-country comparisons of the social behavior of employers and employees, as well as analyzing the response of international organizations and states in terms of adapting the regulatory framework to the changed social relations. The results show that the "point of no return" in the organization of labor relations has not been reached yet. The effects of the increased scale of remote employment is observed only in individual and usually very large companies. However, at the national level the situation with remote employment returns to a large extent to the pre-crisis level, although not completely. At first glance socially comfortable model of remote employment triggers systemic risks, which, if further accelerated, will fully manifest themselves in the foreseeable future. Remote employment is one of the means of labor market globalization, the pandemic of COVID-19 has acted as an accelerator for the growth of cross-border remote employment. In this regard, we should expect an intensification of the international discussion on the need and sufficiency of national legislative borders that restrain the globalization of the labor market, which needs to liberalize remote employment with the participation of foreign citizens.