The main problem in Ukraine’s labor market is a labor shortage; at the same time, between 3.5 and 5 million people of working age are excluded from the labor market, said Daria Marchak, Deputy Minister of Economy, Environment, and Agriculture, during the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC 2026) in Gdańsk (Poland) on Friday.
“Currently, three-quarters of businesses in Ukraine are facing a shortage of workers and are closing down precisely because of this labor shortage. But we have somewhere between 3.5 and 5 million people of working age who are excluded from the labor market for various reasons,” Marchak emphasized.
According to her, this group includes people with disabilities, including veterans, as well as internally displaced persons and women.
In this regard, the deputy minister considers the main task to be “doing everything possible to ensure that these people gain access to the labor market and overcome all obstacles.” To this end, she proposes a comprehensive overhaul of training systems and competency standards, as well as providing relevant retraining opportunities to anyone who wishes to participate.
Employers offered jobs to 1,554 Ukrainians aged 50 and older as part of the government’s “Experience Matters” program; as of June 22, 2026, 841 participants had successfully found employment, and another 713 are currently undergoing internships.
According to a statement on the website of the Ministry of Economy, Environment, and Agriculture of Ukraine, more than 2,300 candidates have joined the initiative overall, while employers have posted nearly 2,600 job openings.
Kyiv, as well as the Lviv, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, and Zaporizhzhia regions, have shown the highest activity in terms of the number of candidates. The regions with the highest number of job openings are Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Rivne. The greatest demand is for salespeople of food and non-food items, accountants, drivers, unskilled laborers, cooks, office cleaners, security guards, seamstresses, janitors, and administrators.
The ministry notes that, given the labor shortage, workers aged 50 and older are an important group for the labor market; however, some of them face age-based stereotypes, the need to update their skills, or difficulties after a long break from work. To overcome these barriers, the program combines career counseling, assistance from the employment service, internships, and direct contact with employers.
Training, which began in the second half of June, is a separate component of the program. Specifically, the course on collaboration in intergenerational teams attracted 1,350 registrations, the course on digital tools and artificial intelligence (AI) received 1,100 applications, and the course on career strategy drew 883 applications.
The ministry added that the Ministry of Economy, the State Employment Service (SES), the Astarta agro-industrial holding, the Zhiznelub Charitable Foundation, the Federation of Employers of Ukraine (FEU), as well as the multi-donor initiative Skills4Recovery, Skills Alliance, and other partners are involved in implementing and funding the program.
As previously reported, the Ministry of Economy, Environment, and Agriculture, together with its partners, launched the “Experience Matters” internship project for adults on May 11, 2026. The initiative is being implemented as part of the National Accessibility Strategy for 2026 and aims to address the labor shortage that, according to the EBA, affects 75% of companies in Ukraine. The project model is based on three components: a training program to update resumes and prepare for job interviews; face-to-face meetings with business representatives to discuss collaboration opportunities; and a hands-on internship lasting up to 10 days to assess mutual compatibility before making a hiring decision.
During the war, the proportion of women among the unemployed rose to 81%, Stanislav Pavlenko, deputy director of the State Employment Center (SEC), said in comments to the “Interfax-Ukraine” news agency on Monday.
“While women accounted for 55% of the unemployed before the start of the full-scale war, today that proportion has risen to 81%,” Pavlenko said.
He also added that a pilot program has been in effect since 2025, allowing Ukrainian women to learn trades in fields traditionally considered male-dominated.
“Under the program’s terms, training is provided in 31 professions. A mandatory condition is that women must be employed upon completion of their training,” Pavlenko said.
Since the beginning of the year, 402 women have been enrolled in such training as part of the project.
At the same time, Pavlenko noted that “in Ukraine, data on the unemployment rate is calculated by the State Statistics Service of Ukraine based on labor force surveys.” However, starting in 2022, the results of these surveys have not been published by the statistics agency.
“According to the latest published data, in 2021 the unemployment rate (based on the methodology of the International Labor Organization) among the population aged 15–70 stood at 9.9% of the labor force,” said the official from the State Employment Service.
Labor market, State Employment Service, UNEMPLOYMENT, vocational training, WOMEN
The labor shortage in Ukraine has reached a historic high—69% of companies cited it as the main obstacle to doing business during the war, according to the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting (IER), based on the results of its 49th monthly survey, which the IER conducted among 469 industrial enterprises.
“For several months now, the ‘labor shortage’ obstacle has been breaking records. This obstacle has remained in first place for over a year and a half, reaching a high of 69% in May. Businesses are concerned about the shortage of workers,” said IER Senior Research Fellow Yevhen Angel.
In May, there was a slight decrease in the difficulty of finding qualified workers—the share of enterprises that found it harder to recruit such workers fell from 62.3% to 60.6%. It is more difficult to find unskilled workers—for 38.4% of respondents in May, compared to 34.3% in April.
Only 2.4% of businesses plan to increase employment over the next three months, while 5.1% plan to place employees on mandatory leave.
“Rising prices for raw materials, supplies, and goods” remains the second-biggest obstacle—the figure fell slightly from 56% to 49%.
The share of those concerned about “unsafe working conditions” has decreased slightly: this issue has become an obstacle for 44% of businesses, down from 46% in April, allowing it to hold third place for the fourth consecutive month.
The pattern of “unsafe working conditions” as an obstacle remains consistent across enterprise size. Medium and large enterprises are more likely to cite this problem—48% and 47%, respectively, in May—as they are more likely to be targeted by enemy attacks.
“From a regional perspective, this obstacle is particularly acute in frontline and central regions—over 80% of respondents in the Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Odesa, Zhytomyr, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk regions cited it. In the west of the country, this obstacle is less relevant. The only exception is Rivne Oblast,” Angel said.
However, there have been noticeable changes regarding two other obstacles. The obstacle “decreased demand for products/services” rose from 26% to 38%. In addition, logistical difficulties have intensified, as evidenced by the increase in the obstacle “difficulties in transporting raw materials or finished goods across Ukraine” from 24% to 30%.
No significant changes were recorded for other obstacles. “Corruption” and “unlawful demands or pressure from law enforcement or regulatory agencies” remain “in the shadow” of the main obstacles—only 7% and 3% of respondents, respectively, mentioned them in May.
“The relevance of the obstacle ‘power outages’ remains at a relatively low level—20% in May—when compared to the winter attacks on our energy infrastructure,” Angel said.
It is noted that 31% of businesses temporarily suspended operations due to power outages in April, but mostly for short periods of time. At the same time, 41% of businesses operated continuously despite the outages. Already, 28% of businesses experienced no power outages, up from 20% the previous month.
Average working time losses amounted to 4% in April. The greatest losses of working time were observed in micro and small enterprises (57%); by industry, in the chemical industry (6%); and by region, in Kyiv (13%) and Sumy (9%) regions.
Assessments of the government’s economic policy remain neutral. “A large share of enterprises provide neutral assessments; specifically, 64% of respondents did so in May. The share of positive assessments remains low at 6%. At the same time, the share of negative assessments stands at 25%, and this gap between positive and negative assessments has persisted since the summer of 2023,” Angel summarized.
Up to 500 Ukrainian industrial enterprises located in 21 of Ukraine’s 27 regions participate in the IED’s New Monthly Enterprises Survey (#NRES). The survey has been conducted monthly since May 2022.
“Nova Poshta,” Ukraine’s leading express delivery service, has about 2,000 open positions, including 1,000 branch operators, 600 installers, 300 couriers and drivers, and another 100 in the support office, according to Anna-Maria Sabov, the company’s HR director.
“If we gain an additional platform as another recruitment channel, especially given that it will allow us to select candidates not only based on resumes but also on skills… I am confident that we will speed up the time it takes to fill vacancies,“ Sabov noted during the presentation of the launch of the first phase of the ”Obriy” digital labor market ecosystem in Kyiv earlier this week.
According to Nova Poshta’s management report, the total number of its employees in 2025 was 33,640, compared to 34,110 the previous year, while the average number of employees in 2025 was 27,570.
According to the director, the company’s current total time from the actual search to a trained candidate is about 30–35 calendar days, which includes a training phase lasting from three days to two weeks. Excluding this phase, the process would take 15–20 days.
“That’s a decent pace, but I want us to be even more productive,” Sabov emphasized.
She added that “Obriy” would provide additional value to employers if it allowed for the automation of paperwork when hiring employees, as this still requires a significant amount of time and resources.
The HR Director clarified that, overall, the recruitment department at Nova Poshta fills more than 1,000 vacancies each month, with 55 recruiters working to recruit employees for operational positions in the regions. According to her, the company plans to ensure staffing levels of about 95% during the summer to prepare for the seasonal increase in workload in September.
Sabov also reported that the company is launching a project to attract young specialists who will work on the architecture and modeling of Nova Poshta’s logistics. According to her, the company aims to make shipping cheaper and faster without compromising reliability and quality. To find such specialists, Nova Poshta plans to announce a separate campaign targeting a young audience in the near future.
“We will announce a major campaign to find such people. We want to start with five people first, so if “Obriy” can also provide, for example, a graduate’s GPA and their participation in extracurricular activities, such as academic competitions, this would be very valuable to us at “Nova Poshta” because we want to work with young people,” the director noted.
As reported, the Ministry of Economy, Environment, and Agriculture of Ukraine, in collaboration with the Ministry of Digital Transformation, has launched a closed registration for beta testing of the first tools of the new digital labor market ecosystem “Obriy,” the development and integration of which is estimated at $5–10 million for the current and next years.
The “Obriy” system will integrate information from existing job portals such as Work.ua, Robota.ua, Jooble, and others.
During the beta testing phase, “Diya” is launching its first two services: grants for professional training (reskilling and certification) of up to 15,000 UAH, as well as the option to remotely terminate employment contracts for individuals who remain formally employed in temporarily occupied territories (TOT). The launch of services for all citizens on the “Dii” platform is scheduled for July 2026.
The main activity of “Nova Poshta” is express delivery of documents, parcels, and palletized oversized cargo. Its ultimate beneficial owners are Volodymyr Poperechnyuk and Vyacheslav Klimov.
According to Eurostat, as of the end of July 2025 there are 4,373,455 citizens of Ukraine under temporary protection in EU countries. Over the month their number increased by 30,980 people, that is approximately by 0.71% compared to the June level — the dynamics are moderate but stable, indicating a continuing, though not surging, movement of people in search of safety. The overwhelming majority of beneficiaries of this regime — about 98.4% — are Ukrainians, which makes the group of aid recipients extremely homogeneous and requires focused integration measures.
The distribution by countries remains concentrated: the key burden is borne by Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic. In Germany there are about 1,196,645 people — roughly 27.8% of the total; in Poland — about 992,505 people (around 23%); in the Czech Republic — about 378,420 people (about 8.8%). Taken together this is almost three-fifths of all recipients of protection, therefore it is precisely these economies and their social systems that first react to any changes in inflow: in large agglomerations the issues of housing affordability become acute, the need for school places and language courses grows, and municipal budgets face continuous obligations.
In such conditions, reception policy inevitably shifts to an integration agenda. Coming to the fore are the accelerated recognition of qualifications, intensive language programs, access to kindergartens and schools, as well as reskilling instruments. The labor market becomes the main shock absorber: the faster people move into formal employment, the lower the budgetary burden and the more noticeable the multiplier effect for domestic demand. At the same time, the housing issue remains the key risk: concentration in capital and industrial regions pushes rental rates upward and increases social tension. Effective responses appear to be targeted rent subsidies, accelerated renovation and construction of social housing, as well as a more even distribution of placements among municipalities.
Finally, the predictability of financing and interagency coordination at the EU and national government levels becomes critically important. Even with the current “soft” monthly increase, unreliable sources of funds quickly turn a manageable situation into a problem for local budgets. On the horizon of the coming months, the key indicators of resilience will be the growth rates of protection beneficiaries, the share of those employed, indicators of school and preschool integration, the dynamics of rental rates in concentration regions, and the speed of transition from emergency measures to long-term programs. Overall, the picture of stable but continuing growth with high concentration in Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic requires shifting efforts from short-term aid to systemic integration — precisely this will make it possible to reduce budgetary costs and turn the humanitarian response into a sustainable socio-economic result.
EU, GERMANY, HOUSING, Labor market, MIGRATION, POLAND, REFUGEES, SOCIAL POLICY, TEMPORARY PROTECTION, UKRAINIANS
