The article provides a detailed analysis of causes and consequences of modern unemployment with reference to the Russian economy as a whole, and, its sector of agricultural production, in particular. The authors explore varied views on the phenomenon of unemployment in economic science. It is largely described as a consequence of a market economy deformation, resulting from the bureaucratization of management, in contrast to certain liberal treatments, focusing on a “free” (market) demand for labour. The authors give grounds for the necessity to abandon the so-called "effective contracts" as inappropriate under the conditions of the current macroeconomic instability and high socio-economic risks; in replacement, they suggest using more intensively the "social" and "fixed-term" labor contracts broadly accepted in the world.