IT employment as an innovative segment of the labor market

The author analyzes the impact of the information and communication technologies (ICT) on the labor market, and the formation of IT employment, which is considered as a factor favoring the increase in economic competitiveness. The article investigates the impact of the global innovation based economic development on the change in the forms of employment, which makes it possible to outline the prospective innovation oriented guidelines of qualitative progress on the domestic labor market. The author estimates the level of IT employment in Ukraine, which makes it possible to compare it with corresponding indicators in the OECD countries and assess the possibilities of innovation based development for our country in the global economic environment. The article shows various peculiarities and socio-demographic characteristics of IT employment in Ukraine. The author defines the segment of non-standard employment, which includes people either employed part time working hours or having casual temporary jobs or working remotely etc. Such employed are considered an underused intellectual potential, who could become a core of the innovation based development of Ukraine's economy. When defining the main development priorities of the labor market as the necessary organizational and managerial tasks, the leading countries of the world mention the issue of favoring the ICT development and expansion, on that basis, of the IT employment. Attaining such objectives calls for a transformation of the educational sector, which is the reason why the present article focuses on the experience of different countries in supporting IT education and IT employment.