Young Russians are facing a work career that is very different from that of previous generations, and matching education with the job market is especially difficult. Their chances of finding a job are very affected by the factor of unemployment. In spite of a relatively high level of unemployment, young people in Russia are being flexible in their choice of both temporary and long-term jobs. As a result of the dynamic and structural transformations of young people's employment in the years since the reforms there has been a substantial change in the overall framework of the formation of their educational and professional trajectories. Changes in the ratio between those still in an educational institution and those employed in the labor sphere have meant that a larger portion of young people enter the labor market at a later age. On the sectoral and professional plane, young people's employment, compared to the entire population, is today more in keeping with present trends in the development of the economy, while the structure of young people's employment has, to a substantially greater degree, turned out to be closer to the structure of their professional preferences. (Contains 5 figures, 3 tables, and 9 notes.)