Composition of Russian Employment: Specifics and Dynamics

Abstract

The paper examines industrial, occupational and educational characteristics of Russian employment. The author indicates that although in the post-reform period there were deep and fast changes in the composition of the Russian workforce in some crucial respects it continues to differ substantially from that in many other mature and transition market economies. The paper provides a series of quantitative estimates of the impact that shifts in industrial and occupational structure have exerted on shifts in educational structure of employment. Its main findings suggest that since the mid 1990s the evolution of the educational system in Russia has become mostly autonomous and lost any systematic relationship with economic restructuring, with changes in distribution of workers by industries and occupations.