Development of Kazakhstan’s Regional Labour Markets in the Digital Economy: Factors and Conditions

Abstract

Changes in the labour market are an inevitable result of technological progress. In these circumstances, the effectiveness of public policy will depend on the correct projection of the future balance in the labour market and on the drivers that can affect the technological development, elimination or preservation of jobs. Based on correlation and regression analysis, the study examines the influence of various factors on the transformation of regional labour markets in the context of digitalisation. The conducted calculations revealed that the human capital and entrepreneurial activity in the region influence the labour market the most. The calculated coefficient of elasticity shows that when the share of students in the population increases by 1 %, the value of the variable of the share of IT employees in the total number of employees increases by 0.15 %. Increase in the ratio of small enterprises to the labour force by 1 unit shall increase the share of IT employees in the total number of employees by 0.002 %. However, at present, information and communication infrastructure is not a key factor in the development of labour market and new sectors, expanding opportunities for digital entrepreneurship, as well as online and offline training. Also, region’s innovative potential (level of business innovation in the regions by technological innovations) is not a significant indicator of the intensity of development of new economic sectors and the formation of a regional base of accumulated knowledge and competencies. It was concluded that for the developing economy of Kazakhstan, the improvement of information and communication infrastructure based on digital platforms is more rational for the labour market’s further development.