Problems of the Employer’s Investment Protection in the Employees and Job Seekers Education by means of Labor Law

In ILO Recommendation No. 195 "On human resource development: education, training and continuing education" (adopted in Geneva on 17.06.2004 at the 92nd session of the ILO General conference) it is stated that member States should ensure the development and strengthening of vocational education and training systems that provide adequate opportunities for the development and certification of skills that meet the requirements of the labour market. The Labor Code of the Russian Federation contains a set of legal norms that regulate the relationship between training and additional professional education of employees and job seekers. The analysis of these norms allows us to conclude that employers can either conduct training on their own training and production base, or send employees to study in educational organizations with guarantees for maintaining their jobs, average wages, and travel expenses coverage. In both cases, the training and additional professional education of employees are carried out at the expense of the employer. The corresponding expenses of the employer can be called investments, because as a result of training employees and job seekers, there should be a useful effect in the future in the form of work of a certain quality. The paper analyzes the current problems of economic interests protection of the employers who provide training for employees and job seekers at their own expense. The author reveals contradictions in the rules of the labour code and in judicial practice regarding the determination of the composition of the expenses of the employer related to the learning conditions of the student agreement and learning agreement on the work repayment period with the employer, on reimbursement of training costs in case of dismissal without valid reasons. The author proves the need to strengthen the legal mechanism for employers’ investments protection for employee training, but at the same time draws attention to the protection of employee rights as the economically weaker side of the employment contract. In particular, it is proposed to exclude paid wages and scholarships from the employer’s reimbursable expenses for training an employee or student, since they are necessary for the existence of the employee or student. The study of doctrinal, regulatory and judicial sources on employee training at the expense of the employer resulted in proposals for amendments to articles 4, 207, 249 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation.