Tensions Between the «Employment Promotion» and «Social Protection» Systems in the Employment of Citizens with Reduced Competitiveness in the Labour Market

Abstract

A special place on the Russian labour market is occupied by citizens who have difficulty finding work: various categories of young people and older people, persons with disabilities, former military personnel, single parents, parents with large families and those raising minor children, disabled children and others. Such vulnerable categories are the object of two directions of state policy: promotion of employment (expressed in measures of employment assistance) and social protection (the main content of which is in social payments, benefits and guarantees for citizens). The article substantiates the contradiction between these public policies, which can undermine the efforts of employment services to employ these citizens. In order to identify this contradiction, a large-scale analysis of federal and regional normative legal acts in the sphere of support for citizens experiencing difficulties in finding a job was conducted. A number of categories of the population have higher incentives to receive social payments (which they can lose if they are employed) than incentives to get a job and formal work, which the employment assistance system is aimed at. An aspect of the contradiction is also positive discrimination, which consists in granting additional labour guarantees to vulnerable categories, which falls on the employer and reduces his/her interest in employing such categories. The manifestation of the contradiction between the systems of «employment promotion» and «social protection» is considered for: working parents or guardians taking care of a disabled child under the age of 18 or a disabled child from the first group; graduates of professional educational institutions; working pensioners. A more detailed analysis has been made of orphans, children left without parental care and persons from the group of orphans and children left without parental care. Proposals for overcoming the contradictions between the system of «promotion of employment» and «social protection» are presented, the essence of which lies in a change in the emphasis of government policy: from creating conditions for living on benefits, to creating conditions for independent economic activity, professional and personal fulfilment.