The self-employed were mobilized for work

As follows from the results of consecutive YouDo and hh.ru polls, after the announcement of partial mobilization in Russia, the demand for self-employed services could grow. According to the adopted amendments to the Labor Code, employers cannot dismiss mobilized employees, but are obliged to keep their jobs until they return from military service. The self-employed, due to the peculiarities of their status, can take some of these positions – however, subsequently, companies run the risk of being required to recognize such temporary workers as permanent ones.

In the past few months, there has been a growing number of companies in Russia that are ready to hire the self-employed. Such a conclusion can be drawn from the data of two joint surveys of YouDo personnel platform companies and the hh.ru personnel portal, conducted in mid-summer and at the end of September this year. Recall that since 2019 in the Russian Federation there is a tax on professional income for those who work for themselves, whose maximum income does not exceed 2.4 million rubles. per year (rate – 4% for individuals and 6% for individual entrepreneurs and legal entities). As of September 1, according to the Federal Tax Service, there were more than 5.4 million self-employed people in the Russian Federation.

As follows from the survey data, if in the middle of summer the share of respondents-employers who stated that they were already working with the self-employed was 52%, then by September it had grown to 56%. It should be noted that over the past year as a whole it increased to 19 percentage points. Most often, employers are ready to attract from 30 to 100 freelancers for cooperation, every thirtieth company needs a larger number of self-employed people. Almost half of the companies need marketing specialists, advertisers and PR specialists (47%), IT specialists (44%), couriers (25%), recruiters (23%), loaders (23%) and designers (22%).

Among the advantages of working with the self-employed, companies most often name the ease of mass hiring (53%), the speed of the performer on the task (47%) and ease of registration (39%). In fourth place among the “pluses” of such performers is the ability to attract them temporarily (30%), in fifth place are the benefits of a special tax regime (20%).

Elena Kozhemyakina, managing partner at BLS law firm, explains that additional demand for the self-employed in the Russian labor market could arise due to the partial mobilization announced by the president on September 21. According to the amendments to the legislation adopted by the State Duma at the end of the month, the mobilized cannot be fired – the employer can only suspend their employment contract until they return from military service and temporarily hire someone to their workplace. “In this situation, what to do with the tasks that the person called for service had – redistribute duties between others, open a temporary vacancy and invite a person to a fixed-term contract or use the services of self-employed? The self-employed option looks logical and justified. Minimum risks, labor costs and payments: there are no social benefits and guarantees, there is no need to comply with labor laws, the terms of the transaction and payment are only those that are prescribed in the contract,” she notes. However, for the employer, there is a risk that such relations will be reclassified as labor relations by a court decision in the future. “When the conscripts return to their jobs, the self-employed can start filing lawsuits to have their GPC contracts recognized as labor contracts, with all the required payments and benefits,” the lawyer notes.

However, according to Dmitry Serebryakov, CEO of the Digital HR Platform, a new branch of services is now being formed in Russia that simplify the entire cycle of interaction with the self-employed for enterprises – they organize not only search and hiring for them, but also payment for work performed, and also take on the entire paperwork. “Gradually, such services can begin to act as centers of expertise, they minimize the risk for the employer to violate Russian law by using the self-employed for jobs that require registration of standard labor relations,” he says.

Anastasia Manuylova