Working hours in the world, according to the International labour organization (ILO), decreased due to pandemic coronavirus by 14%, which is comparable to the loss of 400 million jobs. Such data, however, may reflect new ways of adapting the global labour market to the crisis by reducing working time instead of dismissing them. Previously, we recall, the experts called it a traditionally Russian way of adaptation of employment to the new conditions. In Russia he remains personally popular: in may the number of unemployed and the number working part-time differed only by one third.As follows from the new issue of the monitoring of the labour market, organized by ILO in the second quarter of 2020 hours of work in the world declined by 14 per cent, equivalent to a loss of 400 million jobs. Maximum reduction of actual hours the organization has recorded in the countries of North and South America (18.3 percent) in other regions they were one-third less. So, in the countries of Europe and Central Asia, their rate reached 13.9% in the Asia-Pacific region — 13,5%, in the Arab countries 13.2% in Africa and 12.1%. As the authors of the ILO report, the decision of the organization to use instead of the traditional method of assessing the state of the labor market as the unemployment rate, the measurement of working time “gives a better picture of the current situation”.The transition to a new indicator may also reflect changes in response to the crisis of the world labour market. Thus, according to Eurostat in April, unemployment in the EU, although increased in comparison with March on 0,2 percentage points was 6.6% below the April figure 2019 by 0.2 p. p. With this slight increase in unemployment, reduction of working time talking about the spread of the transfer of employees in the modes of part-time employment or vacation. In the US, where the ILO captures the maximum rates of reduction of working hours, although unemployment rose to 14.7% (from 4.4% at the beginning of the month), in may the rate went down, reaching 13.3 percent. This, as earlier wrote “Kommersant”, can be explained by the country structure of unemployment — 80% of it now are the layoffs.Data of labor market in Russia also show an increase in popularity among companies flexible ways of reducing costs of employees. In Russia the growth of unemployment in may 2020 to 4.5 million people, the number of employees transferred to part-time employment, according to the labor Ministry, was about 3 million people. Of these, 1.5 million were directed to a simple, 1.3 million transferred to part-time and approximately 280 thousand in unpaid leave. The data of the Ministry of labor based on the reporting of companies, which collectively employ approximately 20 million workers, explained earlier the head of Department Anton Kotkov, while Rosstat analyzes the totality of the economically active population.However, if the labor market of the Russian Federation reduction of working time and wages instead of layoffs, the traditional response to the crisis, in other countries until the epidemic COVID-19 it was rather the opposite. As suggested by the principal researcher of the IMEMO RAS, the Deputy Director of the Centre for labour market studies, Rostislav Kapelyushnikov, the active use of “non-standard” methods to adapt to the crisis suggests that the agents of the labour market from the very beginning proceeded from the assumption that the short-term nature of quarantine measures. “The underutilization of labor in the form of unemployment is associated with a much large social costs and risks than its underutilization in the form of underemployment. In the current crisis, all countries used both, but the ratio between them was different,”— said the expert. It is necessary to consider that the rate of unemployment and underemployment vary, as a rule, not in opposition, but parallel. “The number of unemployed and the number employed part-time and grow and shrink at the same time, and consider the latest future unemployed is incorrect. This, in particular, the experience of the Russian labour market in the 1990-ies”,— he said.Anastasia Manuylova
