In Ukraine, about 20% of the adult population is not officially employed anywhere. At the same time, employers cannot find specialists even for a high salary. The war, population migration and mobilization have dramatically changed the labor market.

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This was told by the head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy Danylo Hetmantsev.

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According to Hetmantsev, now there is a very acute shortage of qualified specialists in the labor market. Moreover, both in the field of mental and physical labor. This imbalance in the workforce has been most prominently influenced by two factors:

• colossal migration of the population;

• Large-scale mobilization.

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Migration. It covers about 10 million citizens. About 6 million Ukrainians ended up abroad. Moreover, many of them are highly qualified intellectual workers: engineers, scientists, educators, financiers, marketers.

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At the same time, the majority of internal migrants are mainly people who were engaged in manual labor at large enterprises in eastern Ukraine before the war. Many of them have the professions of metallurgists or related specialties.  Because of this, they cannot find a use in the center and west of the country. As a result, half of the internal migrants are currently unemployed.

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Mobilization. This factor has affected the labor market both directly and indirectly. Many valuable specialists were mobilized. There are a lot of vacancies at enterprises that there is no one to fill, because a good specialist needs to be trained for years.

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In addition, many men themselves "went underground", fearing mobilization. Some of them found remote work. Some are temporarily supported by their mothers and wives. And someone still managed, figuratively speaking, to swim across the Tisza.

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"It is becoming increasingly difficult to find a qualified specialist for a decent salary. At the same time, real unemployment, according to NBU estimates, is 19%. This is, first of all, a structural problem that the labor market faces. Most of the structural unemployment, as well as the difficulties with finding personnel, are due to negative structural changes in the economy," Hetmantsev said.

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How to saturate the labor market in Ukraine

The labor market today is experiencing very big problems. However, they can and should be addressed. Although it is impossible to cope with this in one month or even a year, Hetmantsev admits.

To do this, it will be necessary to work in the following areas:

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• retraining and retraining of citizens;

• providing grants for your own business;

• providing incentives for the employment of IDPs;

• and the return to economic activity of pensioners, veterans and women in the household.

 

By the way, even now in many cities, a female driver of public transport or a female machine operator at a factory has become a common occurrence. In addition, many workplaces that do not require much physical activity have more mature employees (in call centers, central administrative administrations, post offices). The labor market is involuntarily getting rid of sexism and ageism. In a couple of years, the war has done what Ukrainian sociologists could not do in 30 years.

Recall that due to an acute shortage of qualified personnel, employers had to increase salaries for existing vacancies.