The average salary in Ukraine reached UAH 19.5 thousand at the beginning of 2024, which is 30% or UAH 4.5 thousand more than at the beginning of 2022, according to a study of job offers by Work.ua.
“Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the labor market has recovered by 93% in terms of the number of vacancies,” the study says.
According to the published data, in January 2024, employers published more than 91 thousand vacancies, which is 6% less than in December 2023, and 7% less than in January 2022, but about 11 times more than in March 2022.
It is noted that, compared to pre-war figures, the number of vacancies has increased the most in Zakarpattia (55%), Ivano-Frankivsk (46%), Khmelnytsky (25%), Lviv (23%), Vinnytsia (20%), Rivne (18%) and Chernivtsi (16%) regions.
Kyiv (30.9 thousand vacancies), Lviv (almost 8.5 thousand), Dnipropetrovs’k (8.45 thousand), Odesa (5 752) and Kharkiv (3 347) regions remain the leading regions in terms of the absolute number of job offers. These regions account for 63% of all vacancies.
In terms of growth by category compared to pre-war figures, the top 5 categories were medicine and pharmaceuticals (+26%, to 6 thousand offers), education and science (+23%, to 4.8 thousand), security and safety (+22%, to 2.3 thousand), law (+13%, to 1.8 thousand), and retail (+9%, to 12 thousand).
At the same time, in 19 categories, there were fewer job offers in January 2024 than in January 2022. IT, computers, and the Internet are the slowest to recover.
Research by Work.ua shows that Ukrainians want to work remotely: in January 2024, there were already 3% more remote work offers (6.2 thousand) than in January 2022.
It is emphasized that there are many more vacancies in the public sector – in non-profit, charitable and public organizations: if in January 2022 there were 100 of them, now their number has exceeded 1100.
In addition, the number of vacancies for veterans has tripled. At the same time, such job offers still account for 7% of the labor market.
Also, since January 2022, the number of vacancies for pensioners has doubled (about 4% of the labor market). For people with disabilities, the number of job offers increased by 22%, and for students – by only 1%.
“Changes in the country’s life have also affected the labor market. Thus, professions that were not previously available on Work.ua have appeared on the site. First of all, these are specialists of the Defense Forces: combat medic, grenade launcher, mortar gunner, drone pilot, etc.”, the study states.
It is emphasized that there is a demand for mental health in society: an increase in vacancies can be seen for psychologists (+136% in January 2024 compared to January 2022) and psychiatrists (+129%).
There is a growing demand for rehabilitation specialists and doctors: massage therapists (+69%), nurses (+67%), cardiologists (+67%), rehabilitation therapists (+58%), surgeons (+56%), nurses (+51%), and dental assistants (+44%).
The forced migration of Ukrainians abroad has spurred demand for teachers of English (+40%), Polish (+69%), German (+93%), French (+200%), and Spanish (+218%).
The full-scale invasion affected the work of employees in the tourism, shipping, and construction sectors, so there were fewer jobs for tourism managers (-62%), crewing managers (-56%), architects (-54%), interior designers (-53%), and 1C analysts (-55%) due to the rejection of Russian software.
The biggest drop in job offers is in the IT sector: Front-end developer (-81%), back-end developer (-75%), tester (-63%), etc.
Work.ua experts said that the rejection of the Russian language has affected the labor market, and in January 2024, the vast majority of vacancies, namely 96%, were in Ukrainian.
Average salary of staff employees (UAH)
State employment center
The total wage arrears in Ukraine in May of this year fell by 6.1%, and as of June 1, 2021 amounted to UAH 3.351 billion, and since early 2021 they grew by 28.3%, the State Statistics Service said last week.
According to the service, the amount of wage arrears at enterprises that stopped filing reports during 2019-2020 amounted to UAH 166.1 million on the same date.
As reported by the statistics authority, a reduction in wage arrears in May 2021 was recorded in Luhansk (by 73.7%), Volyn (by 49%), Lviv (by 21.7%), Donetsk (by 17.5%), Kirovohrad (by 9.5%) and Chernihiv (by 2.9%) regions.
At the same time, an increase in wage arrears was seen in Khmelnytska (by 36.8%), Zakarpattia (by 19.8%), Cherkaska (by 14.5%), Kherson (by 12.7%), Zaporizhia (by 12.6%), Ivano-Frankivsk (by 11.7%), Vinnytsia (11.3%), Zhytomyr (10.5%), Rivne (8.3%), Dnipropetrovsk (7.4%), Kyiv and Ternopil (6.4%) %), Odesa (5.2%) regions and Kyiv city (0.7%).
The State Statistics Service said that among economic sectors in May 2021, wage arrears grew in in the field of administrative and support services – by 21.9% (to UAH 17.93 million), financial and insurance activities – by 20% (to UAH 0.23 million), agriculture – by12.9% (to UAH 74.52 million), in real estate transactions – by 12.5% (to UAH 41.04 million), education – by 12.5% (to UAH 20.59 million), in wholesale and retail trade – by 11% (to UAH 40.26 million), professional, scientific and technical activities – by 7% (to UAH 274.27 million), at transport, warehouse and courier enterprises – by 4.8% (to UAH 193.72 million), in the field of informatization and telecommunications – by 4.2% (to UAH 15.91 million), and construction – by 2.4% (to UAH 84.14 million).
At the same time, in the field of art, sports, entertainment and recreation, wage arrears decreased 10% (to UAH 1.74 million), in industry – 9.6% (to UAH 2.506 billion), in the field of temporary accommodation and catering 7.7% (to UAH 1.89 million), healthcare – 3.7% (to UAH 69.72 million), public administration, defense and compulsory social insurance – 2.3% (to UAH 5.38 million).
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine expects inflation to drop to 6.2% in 2022, and salary growth will be from 8% to 10% in the next three years, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said following the results of the government-approved Budget Declaration and the 2022-2024 Forecast of Economic and Social Development.
“The growth of salaries in the next three years will be approximately 8% to 10% per year (taking into account inflation). Inflation will return to the target of 5% in 2023, and it will be 6.2% in 2022,” Shmyhal said in Telegram channel on Wednesday.
At the same time, the hryvnia exchange rate is expected in the range of UAH 28 or UAH 29 per $1 in 2022-2023, the head of government said.
According to him, the approved documents provide for the reduction of the budget deficit by almost half and the return of this indicator to the planned 3% in 2023.
“The public debt is planned to be reduced to less than 50% of GDP,” Shmyhal said.
At the same time, from 2023, Ukraine will be able to enter a stable trend of economic development by 5% per year, he said.
The government at its meeting on April 15 will address the issue with salaries for the medical men, who fight against coronavirus, Health Minister of Ukraine Maksym Stepanov said during a press briefing in Kyiv on Monday morning.
“During the next meeting of the government, amendments will be made to the resolution regarding the settlement of the issue of 300% salary for medical men in March,” the minister said.
