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.
