Labor Market and Its Features in Modern Condition

Abstract

The priority task of modern Russia becomes its comprehensive modernization, the transition from the existing resource-based economy to a knowledge economy. Structural changes in the economy lead to the formation of the new requirements for the content of the employment relationship as well as for the skills and competencies of employees in the system of vocational education. Innovative economy as a control object causes a search for new approaches to the implementation of the strategy of innovative development of the modern vocational education system. The developing process of diversification of educational institutions leads to the formation of a new hierarchy of the vocational education system. The requirements for the structure and content of higher education are changing for creating an open educational system. The educational process becomes project-oriented. The role of universities is changing. Higher education institutions now should provide training of highly qualified specialists who are able to carry out professional activities under modern conditions and meet the challenges of the modern labor market where the special role belongs to the management of educational innovation and the formation of economic and managerial skills of future specialists.

Keywords: Innovative economycompetenceeducational technologyrequirements of the employerprofessional adaptationefficiency

Introduction

Russia's integration into the world educational space initiates the process of modernization and development of a new education system. The new system is formed by the needs of conceptual changes in pedagogical approaches to training specialists. The system should be oriented towards a promising direction of development of the national economy on the formation of an innovative economy. Knowledge Economy determines the specific requirements for specialists capable of adapting to its socio-economic system: the mobile professional with a high potential for mastery of professional competencies redirects and easily adapts to changing economic conditions, production processes, social conjuncture.

Currently, higher educational institutions play an important role in innovative development of national and regional economy. Universities can and should ensure development of a complete innovation cycle from basic researches to manufacturing and sales of high-tech products and technologies, establish and improve innovative infrastructures in regions, execute training, retraining and advanced training for professionals engaged in innovative industries. During modernization of the higher education system and formation of innovative economy in Russia, problems of management of educational innovations in universities become especially relevant.

Subject and methods of research

There are five priority areas of innovation: the rational use of resources, the development of medicine, space and information technologies and nuclear power. Implementation of this strategy assumes the improvement of legislation, banking and tax systems as well as that of industrial and educational spheres (Podzorova, Suzdalova, & Marchuk, 2015). The success of modernization depends to a great extent on coordination between demand for the labor market and supply of the services, for their interaction, which greatly affects the Russia's transition to the leading positions.

Labor market, as a part of any market economy, provides a mechanism for specialization and redeployment of labor by industry, type of activity, according to criteria of efficiency and in accordance with the structure of social needs and forms of ownership.

Currently, Russia has been forming an updated labor market, aimed at stimulating entrepreneurship, development of creative potential of employees and an increase of labor mobility.

However, analysis of the actual state of Russian labor market reveals a number of its specific features:

1. Non-equilibrium in personnel conditions: overabundance of administrators in acute shortage of technical personnel.

2. Non-flexible employee compensation: wages do not practically depend on personal contributions and professional skills, employees undergo difficulties with adaptation to changes in labor environment such as change of profession, trade or specialization, change of residence in search of a suitable job. Labor market institutions do not keep up with modernization of industry.

3. Low labor mobility due to insufficient development of housing and rental market.

4. Low adaptation to progress in science and technology.

5. Low labor productivity. Low-skilled workers are mostly retained (reserved labor).

6. Youth unemployment.

To solve the problems of youth unemployment and to train the professionals for the modern labor market, the step of the formation and development of personality is the most important. In the process of professional development of the individual at this stage, the development of new social functions and roles occurs. It is at this stage that the social and professional roles of personality required for professional adaptation can be formed.

To improve the efficiency of young person’s adaptation to the labor market, the help in the formation of professional plans and the determination of the development of one’s own abilities and opportunities is required. In our view, this approach to the content of professional education makes it focused not only on the cognitive processes, but also on the professional upbringing and the formation of self-regulatory mechanisms and value orientations personality.

Formation of the Russian labor market is currently not completed. It is necessary to make adjustments to its further development, namely, to adapt the labor market to requirements of scientific and technological progress, to retrain existing staff and to train new employees for innovative industries, to improve teaching of basic sciences and compulsory subjects in general education institutions, to put into operation "social mobility" and the principle of fair pay. In order to achieve the objectives, a further development of the vocational education system is necessary.

While the range of educational techniques and innovative education programs expands, management of educational innovation becomes a vital issue of innovative development of universities. Continuous monitoring of development of educational techniques includes collection, processing and analysis of information by the condition and the use of innovative education technologies. This allows justifying the choice of management of innovation techniques in educational activities of universities.

Modern Pedagogy ranks educational innovations as techniques that improve the course and results of education. The concept of "educational innovation" refers not only to creation and dissemination of innovations in the educational system, but also to the changes that are significant, accompanied by changes in activity and thinking. A category of innovation is more qualitative than temporary. Innovative models convert essential properties of learning such as a target orientation, a character of interaction between teachers and students, their positions during training. Fig. 1.

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Formation of the person’s scientific and industrial potential begins with schooling. Disadvantages of basic education are manifested during professional training at the university. It is necessary to revive the best practices of the school of the Soviet period, when in addition to compulsory subjects, curriculum provided for development of morality, culture, patriotism and duty to the native land. Minimal knowledge is known to lead to minimal desires, and a further choice of the graduate depends crucially on educational standards of training in high school (Marchuk, & Kostenko, 2013).

Particular attention should be given to teaching basic sciences, which are a basis for any discoveries and technologies, as their development is essential in terms of modernization. The system of education is a social institution that ensures the reproduction of intellectual and cultural potential of the society; under modern conditions, it is a range of educational services provided by educational institutions to customers (government, business and private individuals).

In modern Russia, education reforms focus primarily on western experience. The western system of education is based on the absence of state standards in various fields and specializations as well as elective courses and subjects at students' option. In addition, recently there has been a decline in the volume of compulsory teaching load and an increase of the proportion of independent students' work. This system is designed for advanced students, the elite; such students do not enter ordinary Russian universities.

Survey results analysis

The Russian educational system has been always distinguished by deep fundamental training in basic disciplines, forming broad-minded and flexible thinking. Conversion to for-profit education is absolutely unacceptable and will lead to ultimate destruction of matured educational achievements.

The most important condition for effective modernization of education is the state funding of innovations and techniques, improvement of training and methodological support of higher vocational education institutions and establishment of training facilities in order to develop knowledge-intensive industries and, consequently, new jobs in the labor market.

However, it would be wrong to impose a duty of education funding on the state only. There must be some part of students themselves and employers participating in the financing of the educational process.

Educational services should be clearly divided into compulsory and free (state), and additional and fee-paying (non-state). Here, state educational service is considered as the amount of knowledge of general or special education, for example, the teaching of basic sciences, which are a basis of any discoveries and technologies as well as the training of specialists needed in a certain period in universities.

Non-state educational service is an intellectual product produced by educational institutions, purchased for a fee to obtain additional education (second higher education, postgraduate and master’s programs, adult education centers).

Among key aspects of modernization of higher education at the current stage, development and implementation of innovative pedagogical systems, techniques and procedures into an educational process are specially emphasized; that accelerates the development of creative abilities of students and their cognitive interests, as well as improves the efficiency of learning.

Teaching science is constantly updated with new approaches, methods, concepts and terms, which originate from other areas of science. In contemporary teaching science, pedagogical approaches are considered as a form of human technology and are used in theories of cybernetics, psychology, administration and management, in didactics.

The concept of "educational technology" is a relative innovation in Pedagogy. Analysis of domestic and foreign scientific publications on the topic "technification of educational and training processes" shows the relationship of teaching to scientific and technical progress. The study of educational technologies is divided into several stages: pedagogical technique, didactic technology and educational technology, algorithmization of teaching, information technology, optimization and intensification of the educational process, audiovisual education, modular training and programmed instruction.

Modernization of educational services of universities will increase employability of young professionals in the labor market.

A large social problem is unemployment of the young due to a limited number of vacancies. There are several reasons for which the employer is not willing to employ young professionals and graduates of vocational education: lack of work experience, unstable lifestyle, inflated expectations in the absence of diligence and others. Youth unemployment leads to deviant behavior, divorces, alcoholism, criminality, drug addiction, etc. All this has a negative impact on our society.

In Russia, in accordance with statistical data, the average age of the unemployed is 36.1 year (April 2015). 21.2% of the unemployed are young people under 25 years of age, among them 4.1% teenagers at the age of 15-19, 17.1% at the age of 20-24. High unemployment was observed in the 15-19 age group (31.4%) and in the age group of 20-24 (13.4%) (Gelfrih, & Marchuk, 2012).

Average unemployment of young people aged 15-24 in April, 2015, was 15.1%; among them, urban population - 13.8%, rural population - 18.8%. The unemployment level of the youth aged 15-24 is 3.1 times higher than the unemployment level of the population aged 30-49 years; among them urban population - 3.3 times, rural population - 2.7 times.

There are not enough vacancies in the labor market for young people; this is one of the main causes of unemployment among young people. Available jobs are not attractive enough and do not meet expectations of the young. Currently, the number of university graduates with degrees in Economics "economics, finance, accounting analysis and audit" increases. Students choose these professions as "prestigious". Consequently, the number of specialists in this sphere is redundant in the labor market. There are a number of occupations in high demand in the labor market, but "inferior" in the eyes of high school graduates, such as a bricklayer, a driver, a mechanic, a turner, a seamstress. The youth seek to acquire "fashionable" occupations, regardless of the further employment. As a result, the unemployment of university graduates increases, which negatively affects Russian economy (Lizunkov, & Minin, 2014).

Youth employment is partly created by educational institutions graduating an abundant number of professionals unclaimed in the labor market. Institutions of vocational education should coordinate admission plans with real needs of the labor market so that graduates could find jobs within their specialties. In practice, at present, many graduates of vocational education institutions do not work within their specialties, and are in constant search of decent pay, not registering in the job centers.

One way to reduce youth unemployment is timely information on the availability of vacancies in the labor market. There are usual ways to obtain information about vacancies: special information publications, TV, radio. Although social networks have become one of the main sources of information for young people, but not everyone knows that the Internet offers a large number of sites for job seekers, providing information about vacancies (Kostenko, 2014 & 2013).

A system of network information exchange between vocational training institutions, job centers, administrators and business owners will facilitate a fast job searching for recent graduates. Organizations can offer internship or probationary employment, after which students and graduates will be hired for permanent jobs.

Conclusions

There is no doubt that unemployment has become an integral part of society, so it is essential to make search for reduction of unemployment in order to diminish the negative impact on the economy. Timely information about vacancies for young specialists, graduates of vocational education institutions would facilitate searching for jobs within their specialties

It must be emphasized that participation of government financing in the educational process is urgent for effective performance and development of the labor market and educational services of universities; a targeted training for the industry should begin in high schools and go on in universities. For this purpose, the educational services of higher education institutions should be public and free.

Additional education at student’s option should be fee-paying and have the status of non-state services.

Vocational training in higher educational institutions should correspond to real needs of the economy to ensure effective modernization: the inflow of new technologies and the development of innovative projects and their subsequent implementation.

Formation and further development of the knowledge-intensive industries would increase employment, improve the welfare of young families; that will enable them to acquire dwellings and will lead to the growth of the birth rate.

Acknowledgements

The authors are indebted to National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University for the opportunity to participate in this useful, scientific and research forum.

References

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