The application of flexibility as a feature of non-standard forms of employment in the context of differentiation of labor relations

The article reveals the concept of flexibility as a feature of non-standard forms of employment in the context of differentiation of labor relations. It is noted that the introduction of new technological processes has led to the need to adapt various socio-economic processes and, accordingly, to changes in the content of the employment contract. The employment contract, with its fixed rights and obligations, gradually began to transform into a constantly evolving legal relationship. However, the defining principle (basis) of legal regulation is what unites it into a single whole – human labor as an activity that constitutes the core of the content of labor relations. Accordingly, the use of workers’ labor in non-standard forms of employment is perceived as an important factor of differentiation in the legal regulation of labor relations, and increasing the flexibility of the legal regulation of labor relations, employee mobility in exercising the right to work is one of the main trends in the development of modern labor law. From a legal point of view, from the standpoint of labor law, the concept of «flexibility» can be applied to labor relations, to work, to the enterprise (employer), to the employee. The categories – «flexibility of labor relations», «flexibility of the enterprise» (employer), «flexibility of the employee», «flexibility of work» lie in the same plane, within which the following basic concepts can be analyzed: flexibility of working hours, flexibility of the workplace, functional flexibility. It is stated that flexibility is due to changing values of new generations in the labor market. New forms of work organization develop and support highly skilled, technologically competent and adaptable workers who can deal with non-standard and exceptional circumstances that require creativity, initiative and allow for functional flexibility. It is concluded that flexibility as a criterion of differentiation in regulating atypical forms of employment can be based on individual relations between the employee and the employer, regulated both by the state, through differentiation of labor legislation, and at the local level, where collective agreements and contracts play a significant role.