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4.4 Labour and income
4.4.1 Labour market, unemployment dynamics
Source: ICU
Unemployment rate (%)
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 EFF
6.4 6.4 8.8 8.1 7.9 7.5 7.2 9.3 9.1 9.3 9.4 9.3 8.8
The first two weeks of quarantine threw 500,000 to 700,000 Ukrainians out of work, estimates Gennadiy Chizhikov, president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Ukraine. With 650,000 small and medium businesses employing up to 4mn people, he warns the figure of newly unemployed could jump 5-fold in coming weeks. Noting that small businesses prepared two weeks ago to make it to April 4, he said: “[With] the continuation of the emergency situation until April 24, many businesses are asking themselves: how can they make money during a quarantine? Most of them have a margin of safety until mid-late April.”
Facing rising unemployment, the government is developing a public works program. Prime Minister Shmygal said Wednesday: “We plan to create many jobs in a few weeks. In particular, we need people to repair roads, pave sidewalks, clean up territories. Many different jobs.” Ukravtodor, the state highways agency, was authorised on April 1 to issue almost $700mn in state-backed hryvnia bonds to pay for the work. Unemployment is forecast to
21 UKRAINE Country Report April 2018 www.intellinews.com
