Impact of Employment De-Standardisation on its Quality: Reflections on Academic Discussion at the VI St. Petersburg International Labour Forum

Abstract

The transformation of traditional models and forms of employment raises questions both about the impact of such processes on the quality of employment and about the mainstreaming of these issues into contemporary academic discourse. The purpose of the article is to analyze and assess the impact of de-standardisation of employment on its quality based on the materials - digests of participants' presentations - of the academic discussion held as part of the VI St. Petersburg International Labour Forum in March 2022. During the discussion, employment quality was at the intersection of approaches and principles shaping it (decent work, work-life balance); megatrends ((anti)globalisation of economy, digitalisation, population ageing); macro development conditions (quality of growth, quality of life of population); short- and medium-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic; initial labour market response to geopolitical tensions, significantly increased in 2022; and employment precarisation. The variety of angles in this discussion enabled the authors to form a general idea of the current debate on the quality of employment and its perspectives. Objective of the article is employment quality. Subject is employment de-standardization, understood as a shift of employment from the model of direct relations between the employee and the employer on the terms of a standard employment contract with appropriate rights and guarantees. The first result of the article is that it captures the most prominent issues of the recent academic debate on employment quality. The second result is the conclusion about the fragmented theoretical concepts of employment quality in Russia, limiting their application in public policies. The third resultis recommendations on the content of systemic approaches to measuring employment quality to assess its impact on living standards and include in the system of macroeconomic development indicators.