The Pandemic Impact On The Informal Employment Dynamics In The Russian Regions

Abstract

The article presents the results of the informal employment dynamics study in Russian regions in the context of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. In the course of the work, the following methods were used: expert analysis, analysis of statistical data series, clustering and cartography. The following new results were obtained: 1) An assessment of the scale of informal employment in Russia was given: in general, by the end of 2020, informal employment covered 14.1 million people, or 20% of the total working population of the country, against 14.8 million people a year earlier, when it reached 20.6% of the total working population of the country. 2) It was revealed that during the pandemic, informal employment of the population in the majority of Russians decreased significantly, while its greatest contraction took place in the regions of the North Caucasus, where it is, according to the average data of 2017-2019. 3.4 times higher than in the regions of Central Russia and 2.2 times higher than the average for Russia. 3) Based on the cluster analysis of informal employment, it is shown that the vast majority of the country's population lives in regions with incomes below the average Russian level and high informal employment. 4) The necessity of developing measures for long-term and short-term support of workers employed in the field of informal employment has been substantiated in order to create fair and sustainable conditions for workers, enterprises, the economy and society as a whole.