Labor market, wage rates and unemployment: A study of general trends during the corona crisis

The rapid and undulating spread of the new dangerous COVID-19 infection across the world has exacerbated many socio-economic problems, showing the precariousness and vulnerability of modern civilization. The labor market was particularly hard hit under the current conditions, as it had been undergoing a gradual structural transformation in the previous period due to the digitalization of the economy, and was now forced to adapt at an accelerated pace to changes in the external environment under the influence of the pandemic and the response of the government to it. At the same time, the directions of adaptation were quite controversial, which led to the appeal to the chosen research topic. The authors conducted a comparative analysis and evaluation of adaptation practices. The following conclusions were made: 1) The pandemic confirmed the importance of non-price factors for the labor market; 2) Comparative analysis showed that the labor markets of developed and developing countries were affected unevenly; against this background, the Russian labor market, based on official statistics, looked quite positive; 3) The coronacrisis led to a widespread change in the structure of employment and demand for various groups of professions; 4) The pandemic forced enterprises to save on the wage fund.