The paper presents theoretical foundations of the study conducted by domestic and foreign scientists concerning the issue of impact of social and demographic characteristics of the population on work motivation. Monitoring data on the quality of the labor potential of the population of the Vologda Oblast in 2016 revealed the reasons for the lack of work, arising primarily due to the problems of employment. The study also showed that finding a job in one’s specialty field, regardless of gender and age characteristics, is difficult because of the absence of demand for their specialty on the labor market, dissatisfaction with the working conditions proposed by employers, and changes of career interests. The last reason is more typical for the lower-income people, while those with incomes allowing them to buy durable goods, pay attention to the absence of possibility to improve their financial standing in the future. The study defined the reasons preventing achievement of their accumulated experience: unjust salary accounting and absence of professional knowledge (regardless of the degree of conformity of the chosen profession to abilities, inclinations, and vocation). The first of the above-mentioned reasons is often indicated by poor people, as well as youth, while the second one is defined by the well-to-do and the population over 30 years. The employees with higher education, as well as those having enough money to buy anything they want, in addition to those already noted obstacles to the realization of labor potential named the absence of the possibility to influence the managing of the enterprise, while the population with secondary-level vocational education and the low-income chose the reason of inconvenient work schedule. Low pay rates also affects the mobility of staff, especially when it comes to young people. The forced nature of the release of labor power, associated with the staff reduction, as a reason for the change of workplace is more often noted by women, as well as by the population over 30 years old
Keywords
labor activity, motivation, working not within one’s specialty, job change