FREELANCE DEVELOPMENT ON THE RUSSIAN LABOR MARKET: A COGNITIVE APPROACH
The modern Russian labor market is undergoing significant changes due to the unstable socio-economic situation in the country and in the world, including an increase in the unemployment rate, a decrease in the population’s ability to pay, which ultimately determines the need for adapting it to new economic realities. In general, the Russian labor market can be represented as a complex system characterized by a combination of both traditional and flexible forms of employment caused by economic and technological trends in recent years. This fact, combined with a decrease in the demand for labor in the current COVID-19 pandemic conditions, determines the growing popularity of the freelance concept, which is becoming a worthy alternative to traditional forms of employment. The purpose of the article is to identify the possibilities of applying the cognitive approach and scenario modeling to studying freelance in Russia and predicting the consequences of making managerial decisions within the framework of the object under study. The work gives a definition to the “freelance” term; the results of analyzing the Russian freelance market state and problems are offered; the relevance and popularity of the population’s self-employment concept in modern conditions are substantiated, its advantages and disadvantages for both employers and employees are identified; the key problems of the Russian freelance market are highlighted; the possibility of applying the cognitive approach and scenario modeling to the object of research are substantiated; the results of constructing a cognitive map of factors affecting the Russian freelance market are presented; the main results of modeling scenarios for the freelance market system development under the control actions influence are described, which makes it possible to predict the consequences of management decisions in the future.