The Ñovid-19 pandemic has catalysed the inevitable digitalisation of communications and rapidly changed the organisation and technologies of professional activities of millions of employees worldwide. The growth of unemployment, the transition of professional groups to remote work (wherever possible) due to the need for isolation to minimise the spread of COVID-19 in 2020 led to radical changes in the labour market. Studying the processes of precariation can facilitate the search for responses to new challenges related to deregulation of labour relations. We are interested in examining the participation of youth in these processes. Young population is receptive to social innovation and has excellent competencies in the field of information technology. An analysis of professional trajectories of university graduates (employed in the Ural region and beyond) helps identify whether precarious employment in the labour market can be successful, and determine the characteristics of social groups involved. We used the monitoring of university graduates conducted in 2017–2019 based on survey and administrative data. To process the data, we applied the methods of classification and expert evaluations. The analysis showed that 34.4% of university graduates belong to the precariat, with only 8.8 % being unemployed. Young freelancers and IT-professionals are successfully employed, satisfied with their jobs and high salaries, demonstrating high rates of employment in their specialty. The results can be applied for balancing precarious work; its best practices, accumulated by freelancers and IT-professionals, can be used as a social tool for regulating labour relations in an unfavourable epidemiological situation.

Universities, comprising a strategic resource in building up a region’s human capital, play a key role in ensuring sustainable economic growth. For proactive young people seeking opportunities to obtain higher education, develop professional trajectories and enhance their social connections, Russian regions lacking such facilities are seen as less attractive. This situation provokes an outflow of the most promising university candidates from the peripheral regions to the various centres of attraction. Thus, a relevant research question concerns the relationship between the quality of regional universities and the retention of young specialists, who may be expected to support the future development of industrial enterprises in the region. The assessment of interregional mobility carried out by the present study is based on an analysis of responses from applicant and graduate surveys supplemented with statistical data (Monitoring the Effectiveness of Russian Universities, Rosstat). In order to process this information, classification and data comparison methods were used. The results of the study showed that the Sverdlovsk and Tyumen oblasts are the primary centres of attraction for university entrance candidates from other Russian regions to the Urals, with the inflow of such applicants to these oblasts comprising on average 4.1 % and 13.2 %, respectively, of 18 year olds enrolling in these institutions during the 2015–2019 period. At the same time, the largest universities provide relevant training for the region’s industrial base (up to 87 % of employed Ural Federal University graduates work in the Ural Region). The research results can be used to enhance the activities of universities and employment services in terms of developing tools for attracting and retaining proactive youth, improving the mechanisms for studying postgraduate migration in order to increase the region’s attractiveness.