Page 49 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine December 2024

bne December 2024 Eastern Europe I 49
for inclusive development, recovery and peacebuilding at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Ukraine, spoke in an interview with bne IntelliNews about the devastating impact of the war for Ukraine, “on the economy, on employment” given “how many people left their jobs, left their homes”.
With SMEs comprising 99% of Ukrainian firms and providing around 70% of the nation’s jobs, they play an irreplaceable role in stability and employment. “The key challenges facing SMEs are that many have had to relocate or re-envisage their businesses. For example, heavy industries were concentrated in the east, but with the war now there, companies are restructuring, finding new supply chains, and pursuing new export opportunities. Everything has changed,” Gutsman told bne IntelliNews, citing UNDP research.
In Odesa, companies face unique challenges tied to the city’s maritime economy. “Businesses in Odesa are facing the same challenges, but of course the blockade of the port affects them. Odesa was always a port city, and a lot of the businesses were oriented to that. Now businesses have to reimagine what to do next,” Gutsman commented, adding, "And the UNDP will be here to support Odesa.”
Dramatically changed labour market
Perhaps the most pressing issue for SMEs is the severe labour shortage caused by mass mobilisation and emigration. “The full-scale invasion has dramatically changed our labour market,” said Mykyta Koreniev, director of the Odesa Oblast State Employment Service (SES).
One of the biggest difference is that 80% of the Odesa Oblast SES’s clients are now women. “Men are mobilised and have
to serve in the armed forces, and a lot of people left Ukraine because of the war. Now we have severe deficit of skilled workers, mainly in traditionally male professions.”
This year alone, more than 15,000 vacancies were put up by employers in Odesa Oblast, making the SES’s
The Odesa Oblast State Employment Service headquarters. / bne IntelliNews
services more in demand than ever. “Because of the employee deficit even those companies who never cooperated or applied for the services of the State Employment Service now apply,” said Koreniev.
Asked which sectors have the biggest unmet demand for labour, Koreniev gave a long list, including agriculture, trade, the civil service, transport, manufacturing, medicine, education, accountancy, metalworking, and others.
The SES’s service is free for both employers and jobseekers, and this year has found positions for over 10,000 people. The Odesa office alone has more than 1,000 clients. As well as serving companies and jobseekers in Odesa, it also has a mobile employment service; a minibus equipped with information on job opportunities and vocational training is parked outside the SES office. It is regularly dispatched to smaller towns and villages without their own employment offices.
For the Odesa Oblast SES, acting as an intermediator in the labour market,
it can be difficult to fit the right
people to the right jobs. While many skilled male workers have left to fight Russia’s invading army, jobseekers are overwhelmingly female, many of them mothers with young children. Others include veterans, internally displaced people from the east of the country, and workers close to retirement age.
The employment service has responded to the need for new skills by setting
up vocational training programmes.
"We provide more than 140 short-term courses to up-skill in 33 professions," Koreniev said. “This year more than 1500 jobless people were trained. Usually more than 80% of graduates of those courses find a job.”
Professions covered include construc- tion, beauty, services, bartending, admin- istration, accountancy and various industrial specialisms such as welding.
The employment service is encouraging women to retrain for high-demand, traditionally male-dominated fields like welding and construction. Yet, these retraining efforts face challenges – not least the demand for childcare, given only around half of Odesa’s kindergartens have bomb shelters and are thus allowed to operate.
Made in Ukraine
Since May 2024, the Odesa Oblast SES office has also been home to Odesa’s Made in Ukraine office. The ninth such office in the country, it was set up by the UNDP and government of Japan in cooperation with the SEC, the Odesa Oblast Employment Centre and the Ministry of Economy.
The role of the Made in Ukraine platform, announced by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in February 2024, is to support Ukrainian
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