Regional labour market: A method for research

Turbulent socioeconomic environment significantly affects the state and dynamics of the regional labour market. The paper develops and tests a methodological toolkit for assessing the state of a regional labour market allowing for the main socioeconomic trends – digitalisation and innovative development of the economy. Labour economics constitutes the methodological basis of the research. Methods of economic statistical and content analysis were used. The evidence is the 2021 data of the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation concerning the labour markets of the Central Black Earth economic region of Russia, which comprises Belgorod, Voronezh, Kursk, Lipetsk and Tambov oblasts. The suggested method for investigating the state of the regional labour market takes into account the impact of digitalisation and innovative development processes on the latter. Testing the method at the case of the Central Black Earth economic region revealed that the regions’ labour markets appreciably lag behind other subjects of the Russian Federation in terms of wages and encounter labour shortages against rather low rates of digital transformation and innovative development in their economies. The paper formulates recommendations for all parties of the social partnership, which suggest boosting the investment attractiveness of regions; creating high-productive jobs; spurring the activities of trade unions and associations; retaining the youth in the regions; increasing the efficiency of career guidance; attracting labour migrants, first and foremost, from other Russian regions due to improvements in economic, social and household infrastructure; promoting competencies of citizens of pre-retirement age and retired citizens; creating conditions for acceleration of digital transformation as well as expanding regions’ innovation activities.