Labour Turnover in Russia: Evidence from the Administrative Reporting of Enterprises in Four Regions

Early in the 1990s, the introduction of economic reforms in Russia created expectations of a substantial reallocation of labour; "old" jobs in the state and former-state sector were to be shed and "new" jobs created in new private firms. Although the labour market experienced relatively heavy flows, they did not occur in the expected pattern. Most of the separations were quits rather than lay-offs and former-state enterprises continued to hire at relatively high rates. This paper takes a fresh look at the developments in labour turnover and the relationship between the components of labour turnover and various enterprise characteristics. National-level aggregate statistics are used to gain insights concerning the scale and structure of labour turnover in medium and large enterprises. A more detailed examination is then made of the components of labour turnover and their relationship to selected enterprise characteristics using microdata from administrative reporting in four Russian regions.