“The purpose of the standards is to ensure equal accessibility and quality of services throughout the country”

Now the Ministry of Labor, with the help of regional employment centers and the Jobs in Russia portal, collects a lot of information about the state of the Russian labor market. Deputy head of department Elena Mukhtiyarova told Kommersant about how these data are used, how they differ from Rosstat statistics, and how, with their help, the Russian Federation launched a new standard for working with job seekers at labor exchanges.

— According to Rosstat data for June, the unemployment rate in Russia remains at a record low (3.9%). And how does the Ministry of Labor see the situation with employment?

– Yes, indeed, for two months in a row, Rosstat has recorded a record low unemployment rate. July data will be available at a later date. For our part, we conduct operational monitoring of the situation on the labor market based on administrative data. Now, 675 thousand unemployed have registered in employment centers (EEC), which differs little from the indicator of recent months (660-696 thousand citizens).

The number of citizens working part-time is just under 142 thousand people, which is higher than at the beginning of March, but significantly lower than during the pandemic. The situation is similar in terms of the number of idle workers (106.4 thousand people).

— The data you just cited is administrative, and the Ministry of Labor has been consistently developing the system for collecting them for several years in a row. Tell us how this process was built? What role does the Jobs in Russia portal play in it?

– Administrative data is not a replacement for Rosstat data. This is a more operational cut that allows you to identify trends and have time to react to them, although such monitoring does not cover everyone. We see only labor and civil law contracts, that is, 55 million employees in more than 3.5 million organizations.

The data on dismissal and hiring are received on the next day after the conclusion or termination of the contract. Now the reasons for dismissal are collected in a semi-automated mode. Starting next year, this information will also be reflected in the monitoring. The employer submits information about the change in working hours within three days. We also collect data on the planned reduction of employees, including when reorganizing or changing the staffing table.

Collecting data on the introduction of part-time employment regimes is not a new idea. But until 2020, a summary of information on all subjects was held only once a week – information was submitted to employment centers through various channels, up to paper letters. In the very first days of the pandemic, it became obvious that with such an interval, we are simply acting blindly. Therefore, data began to be transmitted online electronically through the Job of Russia portal.

All information is presented on the monitoring showcases by regions, by single-industry towns, by industry. Under special control is the situation with backbone enterprises. Online monitoring is available to the government leadership, governors, as well as a number of relevant ministries.

This is depersonalized information. There is no data in the monitoring that Ivanov was hired and assigned a salary of 120 thousand rubles. But the monitoring shows that company X concluded three employment contracts over the past day, and terminated, for example, one.

Yes, if the employer does not want to show mass layoffs, then the maximum that we can see is just a surge in terminations of employment contracts.

Therefore, work has also been established on daily monitoring of information in the media, signals from federal and regional authorities are being collected, and appeals to the Rostrud hotline are being analyzed. This allows for preventive action.

– What are the advantages of administrative data over survey data, and what are the disadvantages? Is it possible for them to be mutually enriched?

– The key is efficiency. We would never be able to receive survey data on the number of people employed or laid off on a day-to-day basis. In addition, administrative data is “cheaper”. In addition, such data are more objective. For example, some organizations after the announcement of the suspension of work practically did not take employees out of work. Such companies have been preparing from the very beginning to reopen or sell the business. And some, on the contrary, spoke in words about the continuation of work, but hiring was suspended and the number of layoffs increased. For us, this was a signal that we need to prepare to “intercept” the workers.

But at the same time, administrative data do not describe what is happening, for example, in shadow employment. Administrative data does not yet show whether the potential workforce is changing. In addition, the survey data more accurately describe the unemployment rate, since only those who registered with employment centers as unemployed are reflected in the administrative data. Therefore, for a more objective analysis of the situation, we use both survey and administrative data. For example, this is how we see that the low unemployment rate is partly due to the active growth of self-employment. If earlier we talked about 5 million self-employed by 2024 and 10 million self-employed by 2030, now we see that the threshold of 5 million has already been passed.

— So, the appearance of new data also makes it possible to fix new forms of employment in the Russian labor market? Do you plan to fix them somehow?

“Rather not fix, but more accurately assess the nature and scale of these new forms. As far as legal norms are concerned, now self-employed is a tax regime. From the point of view of employment, this form has not yet been defined in the legislation regulating labor relations. In the new edition of the law on employment, which we are currently working on, we plan to consolidate such a concept.

— How did the greater availability of administrative data on the Russian labor market affect the formation of measures to support employment and the unemployed? In particular, what new opportunities does the state have when combining information on the regional labor markets of all subjects of the Russian Federation in a single system?

— Monitoring helps to see problems at the distant approaches and respond to them. For example, based on the analysis of downtime data, a decision was made to extend the payment for temporary work at enterprises from three to six months.

According to administrative data, we see a decrease in the dynamics of off-season hiring. Therefore, we plan to expand the recruitment subsidy program. Let’s extend it not only to certain categories of young applicants, but also to all young people who are registered with the Central Health Center.

Of course, not everything can be seen in the administrative data. Rather, they give a reason to analyze the situation in more detail and, taking this into account, take action. Therefore, on a weekly basis, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova gathers an interdepartmental working group – with industry representatives, employers, social partners, and heads of regions. We literally go through industries and enterprises to find bottlenecks and offer the necessary solutions.

— And how do the employment services in the regions work now? Last year, the transition to uniform standards was announced – what do they imply?

— The purpose of the standards is to ensure equal accessibility and quality of services throughout the country based on the principles of customer centricity. The standards provide for the possibility of online application, minimize the list of information that the applicant must provide, and reduce the time. In addition, they imply a targeted approach to the life situations of job seekers and business situations of employers.

Each situation has its own set of actions: for the employment of citizens with disabilities, women after a long parental leave, graduates, young job seekers without work experience, for mass recruitment.

In general, last year more than 2.5 million citizens who applied to the EPC were employed.

Someone found a job directly in the direction, someone took educational courses and was able to find a job on their own, someone opened their own business with the help of the state.

– Has the work of employment services become more efficient thanks to him? By what criteria are they evaluated?

– The unified standards have been “tested” on the modernized ESC, so that it is possible to evaluate their effectiveness in action. The main criterion is the employment of applied citizens and the speed of selection of employees at the request of employers. It turned out that if an ordinary ESC helps 3,700 citizens find work in a year, then a center that has undergone modernization and operates in similar conditions helps 7,000 people. During the year, an average of 272 employers apply to a regular employment center to recruit employees, and already 942 to a modernized one.

In general, job searches through employment centers have accelerated. For comparison: according to statistics, an independent search, on average, takes six months from the decision to change jobs to entering it.

In the modernized employment centers, the search speed is 78 days. Our goal is to reduce this period to 50 days. At the same time, in the target model, a person turns to employment centers not at the moment when he has already received a job, but at the stage of making a decision to change jobs. In order to further improve these indicators, we are forming a “customer-centricity index of the EPC”. The methodology involves the analysis of five groups of indicators: the utility index, indicators characterizing the minimization of the client’s efforts, targeting and personalization of interaction, the friendliness of the EPC and the external comfort and convenience of the center. The launch of the assessment system is scheduled for April 2023.

– And what demand do you see for the work of employment services from the Russians?

– Over the past year and a half, the “portrait” of citizens applying to the employment service has changed. In 2021, 53.3% of those applying to employment centers did not have a professional education. Now 57% of applicants are citizens with secondary or higher vocational education. In 2021, 52% did not work for four months or more before coming to the state for help, today 66% are those who turned to employment centers in the first days or weeks after losing their job. With the unemployment rate at a low level, these changes are a signal of an increase in confidence in our specialists, because even those who have a high potential for self-searching are starting to use the services of employment centers.

Interviewed by Anastasia Manuylova