In Ukraine, more IT professionals are closing their fops than opening new ones: -7.5 thousand entrepreneurs since the beginning of the year. In general, IT fops are among the longest-lived: the median life span of those who worked in computer programming and closed this year is almost 4 years. The oldest entrepreneur among those who closed this year worked for 34 years.
18,605 new sole proprietorships in computer programming appeared this year, which means that the number of newcomers to the field remained almost unchanged. Instead, existing businesses are closing more and more actively: 26,158 IT entrepreneurs have closed their operations. Overall, losses in the industry tripled over the year: 7,553 FOPs in just ten months of this year.
Traditionally, the largest number of new IT fops was registered in Kyiv (3737), Lviv (2015), Dnipro (1740), Kharkiv (1557), and Kyiv regions (1338). At the same time, only two regions maintained a positive balance – when more opened than closed -: Volyn (+19 fops) and Ternopil (+12).
Men predominate among new IT entrepreneurs – 57% of registrations, while women account for 43%. And in no region does the number of women entrepreneurs exceed the number of men – this is currently an atypical situation for Ukrainian businesses, which are mostly started by women.
The median life of an IT fop that closed in 2025 is 4 years. One in six IT fops ceases operations within the first year, and another third operate for one to four years. The oldest entrepreneur to close this year had been operating since 1991.
However, the closure of fops does not necessarily indicate a crisis in the industry, but rather a change in the way IT professionals are employed. Thus, according to DOU, 57% of IT professionals work as freelancers this year. Comparatively, a year ago, the number was 70%, and in 2022 it was 87%.
At the same time, according to Gini, the number of vacancies in the IT sector has only increased over the past year. Thus, while 72,396 job offers for IT professionals were posted in 10 months of last year, the same period this year has already seen an 11% increase in such offers: 80 297.
https://opendatabot.ua/analytics/it-foponomics-2025
Engineering and construction company Rauta will launch sandwich panels, ventilated facades, and roofing materials made from “green” steel on the Ukrainian market next year, Rauta Director Andriy Ozeychuk announced during a panel discussion at the 5th Ukrainian Construction Congress in Kyiv on Friday.
“In 2026, Rauta will launch sandwich panels, ventilated facades, and roofing materials made from ‘green’ steel, which is produced using hydrogen, electricity, and biogas instead of fossil fuels. The residual product of this production process is not carbon dioxide, but water,” he said, citing an example of the company’s implementation of ESG principles (Environmental, Social, Governance – environmental, social and corporate responsibility).
According to him, the use of “green” steel, in particular, will significantly reduce the amount of embodied carbon and increase the number of points when certifying a building according to the LEED and BREEAM environmental systems.
Rauta systematically implements key ESG principles in its activities, because a transparent corporate culture and reputation are important to the company’s customers. “The projects implemented by our company always incorporate solutions that comply with ESG principles. For example, the Energy series’ airtight technology and sandwich panels reduce operational carbon and increase the sustainability of the facility,” says Ozeychuk.
In 2022, Rauta was the first in Ukraine to introduce Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for building envelopes. The company is also actively involved in social projects: it partners with architectural competitions, provides grants for training young architects at InLab and Plus Minus schools, has set up a training stand in a specialized energy conservation auditorium at KNUSA, and has launched an educational project on sustainable design.
The expert noted that the advantage of steel solutions for the customer is the speed of project implementation and the ability to create large-span spaces. If necessary, steel frames can be relatively easily relocated or 100% recycled as scrap metal, which significantly increases their value for the customer compared to reinforced concrete solutions.
Ozeychuk stated that European construction customers implementing projects in Ukraine are not only willing to pay for steel solutions, but also often insist on the use of more environmentally friendly and energy-efficient materials.
“This is due to a more conscious attitude towards ecology and construction experience in the EU, where the European Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) is in force, which sets requirements for improving the energy efficiency of existing and new buildings, which directly affects the criteria for selecting materials. Unfortunately, Ukrainian construction customers mainly look at low prices rather than environmental or quality characteristics,” he said.
According to his forecast, if Ukraine implements the European Directive, the demand for materials with better thermal and environmental characteristics will increase. “This will increase competition between Ukrainian and European manufacturers and force the former to invest in modern production processes to improve the environmental friendliness and energy efficiency of their products,” Ozeychuk believes.
Rauta is a leader in the Ukrainian steel construction market and a member of the European Construction Industry Association. The company provides design, manufacturing, and installation solutions in accordance with current EU standards. The company is licensed to perform construction work with medium and significant consequences (CC2, CC3). According to the Unified State Register, Andriy Ozeychuk owns 100% of the company’s authorized capital.
US exchange-traded funds (ETFs) investing in Bitcoin have faced an outflow of $3.5 billion in investor funds since the beginning of this month, according to Bloomberg calculations. The record outflow in a single month was set in February this year and amounted to $3.6 billion. With one week left in November, this record could be broken.
In particular, investors withdrew $2.2 billion from the largest Bitcoin ETF, IBIT, managed by BlackRock.
The price of Bitcoin fell 2.6% on Monday to $85,700. Since the beginning of the year, the cryptocurrency has fallen in price by about 7%.
Citi Research analysts note that the outflow of funds from ETFs exacerbates the negative dynamics of the cryptocurrency, while the inflow of funds accelerates its growth. According to their calculations, an outflow of $1 billion from funds investing in Bitcoin leads to a 3.4% decline in the value of Bitcoin itself, and vice versa.
Global steel production in October 2025 decreased by 5.9% compared to October 2024, to 143.340 million tons, with declines recorded in most of the top ten producing countries, according to data from the World Steel Association (Worldsteel).
The top ten countries in terms of steel production in October 2025 are as follows:
China – 72 million tons (down 12.1% compared to October 2024);
India – 13.563 million tons (up 5.9%);
USA – 6.989 million tons (up 9.4%);
Japan – 6.853 million tons (down 1%);
Russia – 5.250 million tons (down 6.2%);
South Korea – 5.093 million tons (down 5.8%);
Iran – 3.316 million tons (up 12%);
Turkey – 3.208 million tons (up 3.1%);
Germany – 3.127 million tons (down 3%);
Brazil – 2.988 million tons (down 2.7%).
In January-October 2025, global steel production decreased by 2.1% compared to the same period in 2024, to 1 billion 517.589 million tons. The top ten producing countries for the first ten months of this year are:
China – 817.870 million tons (down 3.9% compared to January-October 2024);
India – 135.987 million tons (up 10%);
USA – 68.376 million tons (up 2.8%);
Japan – 67.327 million tons (down 4.1%);
Russia – 56.536 million tons (down 4.9%);
South Korea – 51.144 million tons (down 3.6%);
Turkey – 31.277 million tons (up 1.2%);
Germany – 28.505 million tons (down 9.9%);
Brazil – 27.988 million tons (down 1.8%);
Iran – 25.442 million tons (down 1%).
At the end of 2024, 71 countries produced 1 billion 839.449 million tons of steel, which is 0.9% less than in 2023. The leaders were China – 1 billion 5.090 million tons (down 1.7%), India – 149.587 million tons (up 6.3%), Japan – 84.009 million tons (down 3.4%), the United States – 79.452 million tons (down 2.4%), Russia – 70.690 million tons (down 7%), South Korea – 63.531 million tons (down 4.7%), Germany – 37.234 million tons (up 5.2%), Turkey – 36.893 million tons (up 9.4%), Brazil – 33.741 million tons (up 5.3%), and Iran – 30.952 million tons (up 0.8%).
In 2023, 71 countries produced 1 billion 849.734 million tons of steel (down 0.1% from 2022), and in 2022, 64 countries produced 1 billion 831.467 million tons (down 4.3% from 2021), with China continuing to dominate and production growing in India amid declining performance in most developed economies.
Earlier, the Experts Club analytical center released a video analysis of the world’s leading steel producers from 2001 to 2024 – https://youtube.com/shorts/VgUU9MEMosE?si=c5yD04gmNtJoFblB
In October 2025, Ukrainian metallurgical companies increased steel production by 7.3% compared to October 2024, from 604,000 tons to 648,000 tons, but reduced it by 5.9% compared to September 2025 (689 thousand tons), according to data from the World Steel Association (Worldsteel).
According to the association’s report, Ukraine ranked 21st among 70 steel-producing countries in October.
In January-October 2025, Ukrainian steel companies produced 6.172 million tons of steel, which is 4.9% less than in the same period of 2024 (6.487 million tons). Ukraine ranks 22nd in the world in terms of this indicator.
In 2024, Ukraine produced 7.575 million tons of steel, increasing production by 21.6% compared to 2023 (6.228 million tons) and ranked 20th among 71 countries. In 2023, steel production in the country decreased by 0.6% compared to 2022, to 6.228 million tons, and Ukraine ranked 22nd in the global ranking.
At the end of 2022, Ukraine produced 6.263 million tons of steel, which is 70.7% less than in 2021, and ranked 23rd among 64 countries covered by Worldsteel.
Earlier, the Experts Club analytical center released a video analysis of the world’s leading steel producers from 2001 to 2024 – https://youtube.com/shorts/VgUU9MEMosE?si=c5yD04gmNtJoFblB
Ingulets Mining and Processing Plant (Ingulets, Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk region), part of the Metinvest Group, increased its net loss by 14.8 times to UAH 1 billion 489.657 million in January-September this year, compared to UAH 100.479 million in the same period last year.
According to the company’s interim report, which is available to the Interfax-Ukraine agency, the loss in the third quarter amounted to UAH 631.343 million.
In the first nine months of this year, the company’s revenue fell sharply due to downtime, to UAH 25.453 million from UAH 7 billion 793.635 million.
Undistributed profit at the end of September 2025 amounted to UAH 12 billion 200.491 million.
The main factors influencing this were restrictions on demand, including due to the loss of metallurgical plants in eastern Ukraine, logistical complications, a decline in sales prices, and the suspension of the concentrate production cycle in the second half of 2024 due to the lack of organizational and technical conditions for the company’s economic activities in wartime.
There was no commercial concentrate production in the first nine months of 2025. In the second quarter of 2025, the technological process was partially resumed as part of ore mining for shipment to the Central Mining and Processing Plant. In the third quarter of 2025, the work was extended.
Ore production for the first nine months of 2025 amounted to 86,745 thousand tons.
Ingulets GOK ended 2024 with a net loss of UAH 1 billion 317.997 million, compared to UAH 167.236 million in 2023. The plant ended 2022 with a net loss of UAH 851.259 million, while in 2021 it received UAH 20 billion 446.101 million in net profit. In 2020, Ingulets GOK reduced its net profit by 75.3% compared to the previous year, to UAH 1.5 billion.
The company specializes in the extraction and processing of iron-bearing quartzites from the Ingulets deposit, located in the southern part of the Kryvyi Rih iron ore basin. It produces iron ore concentrate. The company’s production capacity is 14 million tons of iron ore concentrate per year.
Metіnvest B.V. (Netherlands) owns 100% of the shares of PJSC “Ingulets GOK”.
The authorized capital of PJSC “Ingulets GOK” is UAH 689.906 million, with a share par value of UAH 0.25.
Ingulets GOK is part of the Metinvest Group, whose main shareholders are PJSC System Capital Management (SCM, Donetsk, 71.24%) and the Smart Holding group of companies (23.76%). The managing company of the Metinvest Group is Metinvest Holding LLC.
