How Digitalization Affects St. Petersburg Labor Market in the Accounting Field: Comparison of Applicants’ Skills with the Requirements of Employers

Abstract The development of technologies does not stand still, and the question of its impact on the Russian labour market remains unexplored. This study aims not only to analyze to what extent applicants' skills matching with the requirements of employers but also to examine the changes, which occurred with financiers in the Russian labour market due to the fact of the increased impact of digitalization in the last decade. To answer these questions, more than 121 000 positions in resumes of financial sphere specialists, as well as 14 000 published vacancies, have been studied from Saint-Petersburg via context analysis. As for the results, every year, more vacancies require knowledge of special software. The current results of the research showed that the increased salary is received by employees who have skills in more than one software, have a category of experience not lower than 4-6 years, and also have additional skills in the related field, e.g. audit responsibilities. The fact of real salary facing a dramatic decrease shows stable downsizing demand for specialists in finance and especially in accounting. Due to the development of "smart" algorithms and outsourcing services, routine financial business processes are becoming automated. In complex, all factors lead to structural unemployment of some financiers in the nearest future. Keywords: e-recruiting, digitalization, requirements of employers, accounting