Some 62.8% of companies in the real estate market of Ukraine reported staff reductions from 10% to 50%, Olha Solovei, co-founder of the URE Club, has told Interfax-Ukraine, commenting on a survey of the professional business community.
According to the survey conducted by the URE Club in the spring of 2023, after the start of the war, 27.7% of respondents halved their staff, 35% did not change the number of employees, and only 2% of companies increased their staff.
“The staff of companies is the main asset. At the end of 2022, it became clear that the first market’s reaction and a substantial reduction in the number of employees or payments will become a critical factor in the recovery in the future,” Solovei said.
According to the study, after February 24, a large number of employees changed their permanent job to the territorial defense and the Armed Forces of Ukraine. For example, in the Intergal-Bud company, according to rough estimates, almost half of the company’s employees (both general contractors and back office, etc.) somehow joined the defense of the country in 2022; over 60% of employees of Kyivmiskbud are in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and territorial defense, including vice-presidents of the company. City One Development has an estimated share of employees entering the Armed Forces of Ukraine and territorial defense – 25%.
As for salaries, according to some non-public data, in addition to employees mobilized in 2022, since March 2022, almost 75% of industry workers have been sent on vacation without pay or their wages have been considerably reduced.
Solovei added that despite a slight recovery at the beginning of last summer and the resumption of work at some sites as early as the third quarter of 2022, the construction market has slowed down in anticipation of a tough winter. In general, the number of vacancies in the market of Kyiv in the third quarter was 82% lower than the pre-war figure for the same period. None of the leaders of the construction market in Kyiv has resumed recruiting new workers.
At the same time, in 2023, the trend to restore activity intensified. According to the survey, half of the companies reported their intention to increase the number of employees by 10-30%, almost 8% of respondents plan to increase the number of employees by more than 30%, 31% want to keep the number of employees at the current level.
“It is too early to talk about the return of the amount of payments and the number of employees to the level of 2021. 10% of companies are still in the process of laying off staff. And the expediency of such decisions is obvious, both for companies in the construction industry, the market of which has decreased 90% in the volume, and for companies in the field of property management and service companies,” Solovei said.
Another important factor in the labor market is the proportion of full-time employees who are now either abroad or in other cities due to danger.
The survey results showed that 76% of companies have employees working remotely. Among the 23% of respondents who reported that they do not have remote employees, the majority represent companies where the work functionality requires a physical presence at the property.
Development and construction companies, project management companies, architectural and service companies took part in the survey of the URE Club.
Prices for motor fuel will stabilize in early August after new batches of fuel will enter the market, taking into account excise duty in the price structure, according to the director of consulting group “A-95” Sergei Kuyun.
“This will happen when the volume of fuel with a new tax burden, which began to be cleared from July 1, will fully replace the old stocks. According to our expectations, this will happen in early August,” the expert said at a briefing at Ukrinform on Monday.
According to Kuyun, the wholesale market, which reacts much faster to fiscal changes, can serve as a certain predictive indicator for future fuel prices on the retail market.
“The wholesale market is characterized by the fact that operators have no residuals there, they work very quickly and incorporate all new circumstances and factors into prices very quickly. The wholesale market began to grow back in late June and today we have the following picture: for gasoline A-95 prices have increased by 7.74 UAH/liter, for diesel fuel – by almost 7 UAH/liter. In this market new taxes are already in place and it can be projected on future retail prices,” – said the director of “A-95”.
In turn, according to the consulting group, for the first week of July in the retail price of A-95 in the first week of July on average rose by 3 UAH – to 47.90 UAH / l, diesel fuel – by 3.45 UAH, to 46.86 UAH / l, liquefied gas – by 1.47 UAH, to 23.39 UAH / l.
“The main factor in the price rise was VAT, as this tax is paid immediately at the time of sale and immediately automatically came into effect. Further we expect that the price will gradually increase already at the expense of excise duty, excise duty is paid at the time of crossing the border,” the expert explained.
As he recalled, the tax burden on motor fuels from July 1 increased on A-95 – by 11 UAH/liter, diesel fuel – by 8 UAH/liter, liquefied gas – by 3 UAH/liter.
According to the director of “A-95”, in June in Ukraine there was a record level of imported diesel fuel supplies since the beginning of full-scale Russian aggression at the level of 650 thousand tons.
“Accordingly, this indicates that traders were preparing for this, brought a lot of low-tax fuel. This stock will now be realized and gradually motor fuel with new taxes will come to the market. And when this stock rotation is completed, then we can talk about the full integration of new taxes into the price,” summarized the expert.
As reported, in mid-March 2022, the Rada adopted a law on additional tax incentives to support business during the war, aimed, among other things, at keeping fuel prices down. According to it, temporarily, for the period of martial law, zero excise tax and VAT of 7% instead of 20% were set on fuel.
On September 21, 2022, the Rada passed Bill No. 7668-d on the return of excise taxes on motor fuel, setting them at EUR100 for gasoline and diesel (hereinafter – per 1,000 liters), EUR52 for liquefied gas, butane and isobutane, and EUR100 for alternative motor fuel and biodiesel. VAT for all types of fuel remained at 7%.
However, according to this document, from July 1, 2023 the level of fuel taxes returned to the pre-war level: VAT – to 20%, excise duty on gasoline – to EUR213, on diesel – to EUR140 per 1,000 liters.
Nibulon JV LLC (Mykolaiv), one of the largest operators in the Ukrainian grain market, and Scania Ukraine LLC have signed an agreement to purchase 30 Scania R450 trucks, the grain trader’s press service reports.
“The renewal of the fleet is an integral part of ensuring stable exports of Nibulon. In this case, we are talking about increasing the logistics potential for the transportation of grain by land,” the company wrote on Facebook on Monday.
The grain trader noted that due to the reorientation of export chains during the war and the almost complete loss of river navigation, Nibulon’s logistics business is forced to use combined routes, including grain transportation by truck.
“Nibulon has promised to minimize the load on the roads and minimize its environmental impact. Therefore, the grain is transported by trucks on a short arm to elevators with existing rail shipment capacities.
“Nibulon and Scania Ukraine have been cooperating since 2012. In 2022, Scania Ukraine supplied the grain trader with 15 Scania G400 Euro 5 tractors under the Scania SilverLine program, which includes the purchase of equipment on lease, a service contract, driver training, and a fleet monitoring system. The financing was provided by Scania Credit Ukraine, a member of the Scania Group.
The distribution company Scania Ukraine has been operating in the Ukrainian market since 1998 (before that, it had a representative office since 1993). It has nine service centers (including two of its own in Kyiv and Lviv region).
SCANIA is part of Volkswagen Truck & Bus GmbH and is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of trucks and buses over 16 tons. The company employs 46 thousand people and sells its products in more than 100 countries.
Nibulon JV LLC was established in 1991. It is one of the largest operators in the country’s grain market. It has elevator facilities with a total capacity of about 2 million tons, as well as its own transshipment terminal in Mykolaiv with a capacity of 5 million tons.
The world stainless steel output in January-March 2023 decreased by 5% year-on-year to 13.665 million tons, with production declining in all major regions except China, according to a press release from the world stainless association (The world stainless association, formerly the International Stainless Steel Forum, ISSF).
According to the information, in Europe in the first quarter of this year, stainless steel production decreased by 12% to January-March 2022 – to 1.637 million tons, in the U.S. – by 16% – to 478 thousand tons.
In Asia (excluding China and South Korea), stainless steel smelting decreased by 16.6% to 1.631 million tons, while in China it increased by 4.1% to 8.273 million tons.
Other regions (Brazil, Russia, South Africa, South Korea and Indonesia) recorded a 19.8% decrease in production to 1.646 million tons.
As reported, the output of stainless steel in the world for 2022 decreased by 5.2% to 55.255 million tons. At the same time, in Europe in 2022, the output decreased by 12.4% by 20221 to 6.294 million tons, and in the U.S. – by 14.8% to 2.017 million tons. In Asia (excluding China and South Korea), stainless steel smelting decreased by 4.9% to 7.411 million tons, while in China it declined by 2% to 31.975 million tons.
Other regions recorded a 9.1% decrease in production to 7.557 million tons.
NASA Harvest (Food Security and Agriculture Program) analysts, based on satellite analysis, forecast total wheat production in Ukraine in 2023 marketing year at the level of 25-26.5 million tons, of which 21-22 million tons will be harvested on the territory controlled by Kiev, another 4.1-4.4 million tons – on the temporarily occupied territories, the official website of NASA Harvest reports. According to satellite analysis, wheat yields will average 4.27 tons/ha for the whole of Ukraine, in particular 4.53 tons/ha on the controlled territory and 3.3 tons/ha on the occupied territory.
According to NASA Harvest, wheat acreage for the whole country is estimated to be between 5.8-6.2 million hectares, of which 4.6-4.9 million hectares in the controlled territories, 1.2-1.3 million hectares in the temporarily occupied territories.
“Overall, this year’s wheat production estimate is close to last year’s due to a smaller sown area and higher yields compared to last year, which will be slightly below the five-year (pre-war) average of 27.9 million tons. This assumes that all the wheat sown will be harvested and that satellites cannot provide information on who harvested the wheat and whether Ukraine will benefit economically from its fertile farmland,” NASA Harvest summarized.
Source: https://nasaharvest.org/news/farming-warzone-nasa-harvest-releases-satellite-based-ukraine-wheat-production-estimates
Initial registrations of electric cars in Ukraine in January-June tripled compared to the same period of 2022 – up to 12.6 thousand units, including 2.8 thousand were new cars, 9.8 thousand – used , reported “Ukravtoprom” in Telegram channel.
At the same time, the share of new cars increased to 22% from 18% in January-June-2022.
As reported, in January-June 2022, 4.145 thousand electric cars were registered – 14% more than in the first half of 2021.
According to the association, the top 5 new electric cars of the first half of this year were formed by Volkswagen ID.4 (899 units), DongFeng/Honda M-NV (497), Volkswagen ID.6 (168), Honda e (146) and BMW iX – 87.
In the used segment, the Nissan Leaf (1,921 units) leads steadily and by a wide margin. Next are Volkswagen e-Golf (940), Tesla Model 3 (908), Volkswagen ID.4 (724) and Tesla Model Y – 637.
Earlier “Ukravtoprom” also reported in the Telegram channel that in the market of new passenger cars in Ukraine in January-June the share of electric cars increased by 4 p.p. – to 10%, the share of hybrids increased to 18% (by 5 p.p.), while the share of cars with gasoline engines decreased from 57% to 49%, diesel cars – to 22% (by 1 p.p.),
“The growing demand for hybrids and battery-powered cars is rapidly changing the structure of the market,” Ukravtoprom noted.
As reported, Ukrainians in 2022 bought 13.6 thousand electric cars – 1.5 times more than a year earlier, while the share of new ones increased to 17% from 14%.
