The number of employees aged 18-22 who have left Nova Poshta, Ukraine’s leading express delivery company, over the last 10 days after being granted permission to leave the country has reached 170, while 64 new employees have been hired, resulting in a net outflow of 106 employees, according to the company’s co-founder Volodymyr Poperechnyuk.
“This is not a significant problem for the company. After all, ten days is not enough for serious analysis – we will look at the results in a month or two. One thing is clear: competition for employees will increase. And that’s a good thing,” Poperechnyuk wrote on social network X, supporting the decision of the president and the government to open the border for 18-22-year-olds subject to military service.
He stressed that human resources are the most scarce in the economy, and this forces businesses to constantly raise salaries, improve conditions, and fight for every employee.
The co-owner of Nova Poshta added that restoring freedom of movement for men aged 18-22 is the right decision both for ethical reasons, since human freedom is a fundamental value, and for economic reasons, since freedom is always a guarantee of development.
“Yes, some young people will leave, especially those who are about to turn 23. But at the same time, it opens the door for thousands of young people to return to the country. Now, 18-22-year-olds will be able to freely cross the border in both directions. And most importantly, the outflow of 17-year-old boys will decrease. I think this was the key motivation for officials,” Poperechnyuk believes.
The article does not provide the total number of Nova Poshta employees aged 18-22, but in May 2025, the company informed the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development of its planned reduction of about 2,900 employees, which is less than 10% of the total number.
Forbes Ukraine recently reported that at Silpo, which employs about 3,000 people aged 18-22, the number of resignations has increased significantly but does not exceed 3%.
The National Association of Extractive Industries of Ukraine, Ukrmetallurgprom, the Ukrainian Association of Ferroalloy Producers (UkrFA), the All-Ukrainian Union of Construction Materials Producers, and Ukrcement ask President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to instruct the ministries to promptly resume booking employees through the Diia portal.
“We understand and share the president’s desire to put things in order with the booking of workers. However, against the backdrop of questionable decisions by local authorities, the relevant ministries have also completely suspended the booking process,” the letter, which was seen by Interfax-Ukraine, reads.
Its authors recognize that the current reservation procedure is not perfect and contains certain flaws that allow companies that are not in fact critical enterprises to be granted the status of critical enterprises. However, in the associations’ opinion, it is primarily a matter of the possibility of obtaining such a status by decision of local state (military) administrations.
At the same time, the letter states, following a meeting held in early October and the Cabinet of Ministers’ decision to audit the decisions made on reservations, some ministries also suspended the reservation process, although it was declared that this decision did not apply to them. According to the associations, these ministries have completely suspended the processes of confirming the status of critical enterprises and booking employees for truly important enterprises that have already received this status from the relevant ministry. In addition, the possibility of booking employees through the Diia portal has been suspended until November 15.
“We are confident that your instructions were aimed at identifying risks and shortcomings for their further elimination, but were not intended to stop all processes of booking personnel for truly critical enterprises, which could completely stop the economy and lead to catastrophic consequences,” the letter says.
As reported, after the government’s protocol decision of October 8 to audit decisions on recognizing enterprises as critical to the economy, the booking process was effectively paralyzed, which caused protests from many business associations.
On October 22, the government introduced the possibility of repeated audits of companies’ compliance with the criteria of critical importance “if necessary.” The document stipulates that these inspections are to be conducted by the same authorities that initially granted the companies the status of critical. The result of such an audit may be that the company does not meet the criteria of a critical enterprise and that its status is revoked. The authorities must provide a copy of the decision based on the results of the re-inspection to the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Defense (the SBU, the Foreign Intelligence Service, the intelligence agency of the Ministry of Defense) and the Ministry of Digital Transformation within one day.
employee, reservations, UKRCEMENT, UKRMETALLURGPROM, ZELENSKY, УкрФА
