Institutionalization of New Forms of Employment: From Challenges to Opportunities

The labor market and employment are undergoing fundamental changes under the influence of many factors, the key ones being digitalization processes and the use of digital technologies. The article analyzes new forms of employment in the context of the development of digital labor platforms. The key conclusion is made about the heterogeneous structure of new employees and the inefficiency of universal methods of regulating employment and labor relations, which is confirmed by the facts of using traditional approaches characteristic of an industrial-type economy. The main reason for these phenomena seems to be the exponential (revolutionary) growth of new types of employment (platform, freelancers, gig workers), on the one hand, and the evolutionary development of institutions and institutional mechanisms regulating these processes, on the other. In turn, this is manifested in the presence of «institutional gaps»: legal vacuums, lagging social protection systems, collective representation, tax regulation. «Institutional gaps» lead to collisions, in particular, the confrontation of judicial practice and tax regulation, as well as the aggravation of risks and inequalities for workers in new forms of employment, when they remain unprotected during the period of adaptation of institutions or their formation. Examples of foreign and domestic judicial practices, examples of regulatory approaches to new forms of employment in different countries are given. In conclusion, directions are proposed.