PROFESSIONAL SELF-DETERMINATION OF DIFFERENT PROFESSIONAL GROUPS IN CONDITIONS OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC INSTABILITY (PANDEMIC)
The economic crisis and the pandemic are having a negative impact on the labor market. There is a movement of the labor force caused by a change in the mode of work (combined, remote), an increase in the requirements for competence (possession of digital skills, mobility, etc.) and a reduction in jobs in various sectors of the economy, which in turn leads to an increase in unemployment and the need for millions people to change jobs and professions. An additional stress factor is the uncertainty of the current situation, which is accompanied by the impossibility of planning and building a professional perspective, causing anxiety, depression and the appearance of signs of the unemployed syndrome. The need for employment, assistance in professional reorientation and psychological support for a large number of people, determined the relevance and practical significance of scientific research in this area of labor psychology. This article describes the modeling of professional self-determination of the self-employed in conditions of socio-economic instability. The study was carried out by the method of simulation modeling, the verification of the model was carried out by the method of questioning. The study used a special questionnaire aimed at identifying the features of professional and personal self-determination in a situation of crisis associated with a pandemic. The study was conducted online; 160 people were examined. The entire sample of respondents was divided into 4 groups: “self-employed”, “unemployed”, “employed” and “employed, but wishing to change jobs”. Statistical processing included methods of comparative and correlation analysis. The results of the study showed that employees who do not plan to look for a new job are characterized by a focus on stability, a sense of self-worth and self-efficacy in their current job, and are oriented towards normativity in behavior. Employees planning to search for a new job are characterized by an orientation towards making informed decisions, high self-esteem, independence, readiness to change jobs in a crisis, reinforced by a feeling of lack of demand at their current job. Self-employed people who do not plan to search for a new job are characterized by orientation towards themselves and the situation, satisfaction with the results of their own activities. The unemployed who plan to look for a new job are characterized by self-doubt, dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs, their low qualifications, performance results, they tend to blame other people for failures, on the other hand, they do not want to change their usual way of life.