Page 36 - UKRRptNov23

4.5 Labour and income
4.5.1 Labour market, unemployment dynamics
Ukraine records highest number of job vacancies since start of full-scale invasion. The number of job vacancies in Ukraine reached its highest level last month since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Opendatabot said on Oct. 6. There were 105,000 vacancies on the website Work.ua in September.
The Ukrainian economy faces a severe problem: a lack of workers. Most companies, namely 65% of those surveyed, plan to open new vacancies in 2024, according to an EBA study. Also, more than 80% of businesses do not intend to reduce the number of personnel. In addition, 93% of the study participants confirmed that their companies plan to increase wages in 2024. In particular:
● 29% of companies plan to increase salaries by 10-15% ● 12% by 5-10%
● 10% by 15-20%
● only 2% will increase salaries by more than 20%
Notably, in 2023, almost half (47%) of the companies surveyed increased wages by 10-15%. The study shows that businesses have already begun to experience a personnel shortage. 55% of companies confirmed that they already feel a shortage of personnel, 33% noted that they feel it partially, and another 12% are not yet experiencing a shortage.
Ukrainian refugees have reduced the labour shortage in the European market. European Commissioner for Employment Nikolay Schmidt said that Ukrainian refugees in the EU played an important role in improving the situation in the bloc’s labour market. There is a labour shortage in European countries, and the employment of more than half of Ukrainians contributes to reducing this problem. He specified that in eleven EU countries, more than 60% of non-disabled Ukrainians seeking work are already employed. "This affected the improvement of the labour shortage situation in many European labour markets," Schmidt said. He did not provide information about specific countries where this happened, however, available statistics show that the largest number of Ukrainians found work in Poland and Germany. He also added that there is no exact number of employed Ukrainians, as not all countries have provided information, but it is believed that about 1.5-1.8 million Ukrainians work in the EU.
Ukrainians are integrating in Romania: the number of employed refugees has increased significantly. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, 6,954 Ukrainian citizens have been employed in Romania, and 500 Romanian employers have expressed their willingness to hire Ukrainians. August saw the highest number of contracts concluded with Ukrainian citizens (6,850) who left for Romania due to the war. Before the war, Romanian employers concluded 1,125 labor contracts with Ukrainians. These workers are hired mainly for vacancies that do not require experience or knowledge of the Romanian language at enterprises in the automotive, food and processing industries, bakeries, etc. The minimum salary is about €600. There is the potential to earn €900-€1,200 per month and up to €1,500 in the high-production season. As
36 UKRAINE Country Report November 2023 www.intellinews.com