Improving Management Practices of Long-Distance Commuting in Regions of the Russian Arctic Zone on the Example of the Sakha Republic

The development of the Arctic territories is more urgent than ever for a number of reasons: starting with the request from the government «to develop a state policy in the field of Arctic exploration», ending with a huge number of emerging investment projects, including ones within the Northern Sea Route. For the declared development of the Arctic, a significant supply of human capital is required, which at the moment the Arctic regions are not able to provide on their own. This demand can potentially be met by long-distance commuting. However, it is not so simple because, firstly, not all government officials and scientists believe that long-distance commuting is a suitable model for the development of territories, and secondly, the number of mentions in the media concerning violations of the commuters’ labor rights continues to grow every year. The aim of the present work is to study the organization of the long-distance commuting in the regions of the Russian Arctic zone to provide recommendations on possible improvement of this process on the part of the state. As for the research methods, the review of regulatory legal documentation, content analysis of the publications in the media, a survey of civil servants and interviews were used. The results of the study, among other things, confirmed the existence of imperfections of current legislation. Also, based on the experience of long-distance commuting to the Sakha Republic, a number of additional recommendations were made regarding the combination of a stationary development model and long-distance commuting.