The article considers theoretical views on the nature of precarious forms of employment. The authors identify the main approaches in national and international research reflecting the economic and social nature of signs of socio-labor relation instability. The main areas of studying the phenomenon are summarized and structured. The purpose for the study is to assess the influence of precarious employment on employees’ labor potential, its quality characteristics and their implementation at work. The authors analyze the sociological research conducted in 2017 in the Vologda Oblast and four regions of the Northwestern Federal district in the framework of grant No. 16-02-00290 “Precarious employment in Russia: opportunities and constraints of increasing labor potential efficiency”. The results identify groups of employees depending on their degree of their involvement in precarious social and labor relations: employees with one sign of precarious job– 39.7 %; two – 14 % three – 4.8 %, and with one – less than 1 %. The research hypothesis is based on assumption that a high degree of employment precarization affects the quality of labor potential and limits the opportunities for its effective implementation. The novelty of the approach lies in the analysis of precarious employment from the point of view of the presence of its individual characteristics, but of their total number which defines the “depth” of involvement in precarious employment. The current study empirically confirms the hypothesis and proves that the signs of precarious labor relations negatively affect the social well-being (satisfaction with working conditions, work and life in general) and quality of labor potential. It is proved that precarious employment has a negative impact on the parameters of labor potential. Extrapolating the obtained data on the scale of the prevalence of this problem in the society it can be argued that precarious forms of employment are now the framework of precarization; if the state and the society neglects this problem it is fraught with growing social tensions. According to the research, the processes of employment precarization are rapidly developing (on average, about 70 % of employees in the regions of the Northwestern Federal district under review are involved in precarious forms of employment). Despite the fact that they affected most the “non-standard” workers, almost every third representative of “standard” employment relations face various forms of precarious employment relations. The priority measures for regulating the processes of dissemination of precarious forms of employment are: to develop their legal restriction and enshrine the concept of “precarious employment” and its criteria in the Labor Code of the Russian Federation. The research results can be used in the practice of managing the socio-labor relations in the region to develop adequate measures for minimizing the risks from employment precarization and improving the efficiency of labor potential
Keywords
labor potential, precarious employment, implementation of labor potential, precarization, degree of employment instability