Precarious employment as a prerequisite for career surfing

Abstract

The subject of the study is the conceptualization of the phenomenon of career surfing and precarization of labor as a prerequisite for its manifestation. The object of the study is the phenomena of precarious employment and career surfing. The authors consider in detail such aspects of the topic as the role of career surfing in the perspective of the concept of fluid modernity; multidimensional manifestations of career surfing, as a result of which generalization the types of precarization are highlighted (change of job, type of work, sphere of work, directions of professional or career development; search and evaluation of vacancies or employers, areas of professional training and/or educational institutions; transnational career surfing); the ambivalent nature of career surfing, including both positive and negative manifestations; the interrelationships and qualitative differences of career surfing with the phenomena of social surfing and labor mobility. To achieve the goal, conceptual and theoretical analysis, subject-categorical analysis, systematization, generalization of scientific research results and social practice data were used. The design included solving the following tasks: identification of essential features and varieties of career surfing manifestations; differentiation of career surfing with a number of similar concepts characterizing the instability of career development; systematization of the causes and problems of studying career surfing. The main conclusions of the study are: 1) Career surfing is a multifaceted phenomenon that consists in changing the trajectory of professional career development. The types of career surfing include changing and/or searching for: a job, position, type of work, profession, specialty, sphere or direction of professional or career development. Thus, precarization of labor illustrates the manifestation of career surfing; 2) In methodological terms, career surfing is a social and psychological construct that has deep connections with the constructs of social surfing, mobility, fluid modernity, etc.; 3) The reasons for the expansion and development of career surfing are diverse and include: transformation of workplaces and types of work (including digitalization), the development of flexible forms of employment, the expansion of geographical and social migrations, etc.; 4) Career surfing is ambivalent in its social role and includes both constructive consequences (for example, coping with situations of career and social uncertainty) and destructive ones. The novelty of the research lies in the author's generalization of the results of the theoretical and methodological analysis of the studied phenomena and the justification of the definition of career surfing.