The section provides a quantitative analysis of the labor market in terms of groups of specialties and educational programs. A quantitative assessment of the compliance of the popularity of entrants in specialties and educational programs to the demands of the labor market.

A quantitative analysis of employers’ requirements for candidates for a job, the availability of higher education and work experience. The demand of employers for soft Skills job seekers and professional competencies in terms of specialty groups is estimated by employers. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the structure of the labor market has been studied.

Clustering of specialties and educational programs according to the criterion of similarity of demand for personal and professional competencies.

A large number of works by foreign and domestic scientists is devoted to the analysis of the labor market. Specific methods of valuing this market have been developed within the framework of a certain methodology.

For example, the work [16], which states: «Thus, the suggested methodology for assessing competitiveness in the regional context made it possible to carry out a comprehensive analysis, monitoring and ranking of the regions of Ukraine by the level of competitiveness of young people in the labor market, as well as to determine the priority areas and tasks of development of both regional and state, youth labor market and increase its competitiveness».

Indeed, the results presented in this paper are of some practical interest. However, many problems of youth employment, applicants’ choice of specialty when entering the HEI, assessment of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the labor market require fur- ther research.

Scientists of Simon Kuznets Kharkiv National University of Economics has been working in this direction for ten years.

The research concerns Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk, Poltava and Sumy regions. The analysis was carried out in relation to the list of specialties, educational programs for which the training of specialists with higher education is carried out at Simon Kuznets Kharkiv National University of Economics in comparison with the data for Ukraine as a whole.