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4.5.2 Nominal wages dynamics
Wages in Ukraine decreased to UAH14,577 per month in January from UAH17,453 in December of 2021, according to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), the last data available.
Wages in Ukraine have been rising faster than those in Russia in recent years, but quite apart from the problems that a war with Russia has caused business, the devaluation of the hryvnia in the last months has once again make Ukraine the poorest country in Europe with wages $150 lower than those in Moldova, in dollar terms.
This is not the first time that Ukraine has won this dubious accolade. In 2018 the International Monetary Fund (IMF) briefly ranked Ukraine as the poorest country in its October World Economic Outlook, when it estimated per capita in current prices in US dollar terms stood at $2,964.193, just behind that of Moldova with $3,226.717 and bottom of the list. However, in the 2019 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy election began to lift incomes and Ukraine overtook Moldova and started to grow.
With at least a third of Ukraine’s business in limbo due to the ongoing military operations, average wages are likely to have fallen. However, Ukrstat has not released any fresh data on incomes since January.
In January the average wage in dollar terms was $521, up from $445 a year earlier. As bne IntelliNews reported, by 2021 Zelenskiy’s reforms resulted in Ukraine rapidly closing the gap with Russia, where real incomes have been stagnating since 2014. In Russia the
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