BRICS Network of Labour Research Institutes Holds First Meeting in Moscow

On 9 April the BRICS Network of Labour Research Institutes held its first meeting on platform employment issues as part of Russia’s BRICS Chairship. The meeting took place online and at the Russian Scientific Research Institute of Labour of the Russian Ministry of Labour, which took over the chairship of the research network on a rotating basis in 2024.

Russian Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Protection Dmitry Platygin, Russian Scientific Research Institute of Labour Acting General Director Vladimir Smirnov, and Director of the Department of International Cooperation of the Russian Ministry of Labour Denis Gulyayev opened the meeting with welcome addresses. Their speeches highlighted the research network’s role in developing a common position of BRICS member states on current and strategic employment issues, as well as the importance of studying the phenomenon of platform employment in light of the digitalization and transformation of the employment sphere.

At the start of the meeting, representatives of the International Labour Organization Uma Rani and International Social Security Association Raul Ruggia-Frick presented reports about international problems associated with the spread of platform employment and stressed the need to create a fundamentally new regulatory framework taking into account the peculiarities of this phenomenon and ensure the flexible regulation of platform labour.

During the meeting, the Russian side presented reports from representatives of the National Research University Higher School of Economics Svetlana Biryukova and Yevgeny Styrin, Agency for Transformation and Economic Development partner Laura Nakoryakova, and representative of the Yandex.Taxi platform Polina Bessmertnaya. Their research focused the most on a quantitative assessment of the scale of the new phenomenon, the creation of a sociodemographic profile of platform employment, an assessment of the lack of social protection for platform workers, and the establishment of mechanisms for the state regulation of this sector.

The Network’s member institutes presented concepts for country-specific studies on the topic ‘The Role of Platform Employment in the Labour Market and Problems with Regulating the Labour of Platform Workers’, taking into account the differences in BRICS countries in terms of the level of the population’s involvement in platform employment and the extent of the regulation of the platform labour segment. Different countries shared their scientific findings and experience in regulating the platform economy. A report was presented by Maria Sergeyeva, a senior researcher at the Centre for the Study of Labour Relations and the Labour Market, which is part of the Russian Scientific Research Institute of Labour. In her speech, she highlighted medium-term trends in the development of self-employment and platform employment in Russia, specific aspects of the sociodemographic profile of a Russian platform employee, as well as problems and risks related to the development of platform labour in the Russian economy that need to be further studied.

The next meeting of the BRICS Network of Labour Research Institutes will take place in early autumn in the run-up to the 10th anniversary meeting of BRICS Ministers of labour and employment.

The Roscongress Foundation manages the events of Russia’s BRICS chairship.