The Employment Conditions of Youth by the Entry to the Labor Market and Their Consequences for the Further Career of a Youth

When entering the labor market, youth employment in the first place of work can be formal or informal. In Russia, the share of informal employment among young people has increased in recent years. Young workers, who start with informal employment, may remain trapped in the informal sector of the economy for a long time. Starting employment conditions of young workers may affect the level and the dynamics of their wages in the future. Whether young people who have started with informal employment will lose out on wages to young people who had official conditions of employment in the first place of work is the subject of research. For the analysis we use data from The Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey - Higher School of Economics (RLMS-HSE) from the period 2002 to 2018. Estimates were made using the OLS model, the logit model of binary and multiple choice. The results of the study showed that informal employment in the first place of work ends for most young people with the transition to formal employment, and, as a result, is not a trap, but only a temporary stage in the career of young people. It has been shown that an increase in the level of education increases the likelihood of formal employment in the first workplace for young people. The probability of formal employment is lower for young people during their studies and when there is a high level of unemployment in their region of residence.