The shortage of professional staff at construction sites in Ukraine is up to 50% in both technical and labor specialties, while salaries are showing positive dynamics, according to a survey of developers conducted by Interfax-Ukraine.
“The need for people on construction sites is only increasing as the construction market is gradually recovering, work is ongoing, and construction volumes are increasing. But the war continues, as does mobilization into the Armed Forces, so this certainly affects the labor market. In general, we can state that the level of workers employed in construction is about 40% of the pre-war level,” said Dmitry Novikov, Marketing Director of City One Development.
According to him, the most sought-after specialties include welders, operators of tower cranes and specialized construction equipment, and high-rise mountaineers. In addition, there is a shortage of ordinary construction workers and general laborers, Novikov noted.
According to Olga Pylypenko, Executive Director of Kovalska Group, more than 70% of the group’s vacancies are for workers, most of them concrete workers, reinforcing steelworkers and electricians.
“Today, the number of workers is already about 50%. Given the overall drop in demand, this labor force is in a fragile balance that can be upset if construction volumes increase,” she explained.
The lack of labor at Intergal-Bud’s construction sites was felt again in the fall after the start of the full-scale war, said its commercial director, Anna Laevska.
“At the beginning of the full-scale war, we felt a shortage of workers at construction sites, but the situation was resolved quickly enough. And until May 2023, there was practically no labor shortage. But in the last few months, we have been noticing a shortage of construction workers. We observe a shortage of all specialists,” the expert said.
According to her, the company’s construction volumes allow it to increase its staff by a third, but due to the shortage of personnel, it has to restructure its teams.
According to the Greenville Group, the staffing situation has somewhat leveled off compared to last year, but the group also experienced a labor shortage and began to re-staff construction teams.
“Currently, the shortage is 40% – all of them are highly qualified specialists. Among the scarce specialties on the market are electricians, crane operators, monolithic workers, handymen, and facade workers,” said Natalia Dubyk, project manager of the Greenville group of companies.
At the same time, Alliance Novobud managed to increase its staff at construction sites by expanding the types of work performed by its own labor force. In addition, the company noted an increase in female demand for construction jobs.
“Construction is mostly a male sphere, but amid the difficult situation with the search for workers and the overall economic situation in the country, there is some growth in interest in working on construction sites from women. Most often, these are painting professions related to interior decoration,” said Oleksandra Kachan, HR Director at Alliance Novobud.
The interviewed developers noted the positive dynamics of changes in the salaries of builders. Thus, Intergal-Bud and the Greenville Group of Companies estimated the salary growth in October 2023 at 15-20% compared to spring, and Kovalska Group – up to 25%. In general, developers expect further salary growth next year, provided the economic situation is stable.
At the same time, City One Development expects the shortage of personnel in the construction sector to increase after the war ends.
“Even after the specialists who are currently serving in the army return to work, it will still not be able to cover the shortage of personnel and compensate for the demand for professional construction specialists,” Novikov said.
A similar opinion was expressed by Oleksandr Nasikovsky, co-founder and managing partner of DIM Group. According to him, encouraging Ukrainians to get technical education should become a priority of government policy.
“The deepening deficit in certain highly skilled professions is due, in particular, to the low demand for technical education from young people. Today, there is an acute shortage of monolithic workers, crane operators, painters, and electricians. Encouraging Ukrainians to master construction specialties should be a priority for both the government and private businesses. The vocational education system must undergo radical changes. It will be useful to involve private players who are ready to create a kind of corporate training institutions and facilitate the acquisition of various professions by those who are willing,” the expert said.
The tangible shortage of fuel at filling stations in certain regions of Ukraine, which formed this week, is associated with the enemy’s destructive strikes over the past three weeks on the fuel infrastructure of Ukraine, but this shortage will be eliminated within a week, said First Deputy Prime Minister – Minister Economics Julia Sviridenko.
“Over the next seven days, the deficit will be eliminated, since the operators have contracted volumes in Western Europe and now we are solving the issue of how to import them to the territory of Ukraine as quickly as possible,” she wrote on her Facebook page on Friday.
Sviridenko noted that this situation will lead to a slight increase in the price of oil products. “This is primarily due to the higher cost of logistics due to complex routes and the use of several modes of transport,” the First Deputy Prime Minister explained.
Speaking about the situation on the market, she pointed out that since the beginning of the war, through the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Economy, the government has been cooperating on a daily basis with market operators to provide the population and enterprises with oil products. Decisions were made that significantly reduced the impact on the economy of a sharp rise in the cost of petroleum products on world markets, in particular, the excise tax was canceled and VAT was reduced from 20% to 7%.
At the same time, Russia, as an aggressor country, is trying to stop the Ukrainian economy by creating an artificial shortage of fuel, Sviridenko noted. And the destruction of the Kremenchug oil refinery, which was the main producer of fuel in Ukraine, as well as a number of oil depots of market operators with a significant supply of fuel, led to a temporary shortage, which will be eliminated within a week.
As reported, currently the prices for gasoline and diesel fuel are limited by the government to UAH 34.10/l and UAH 38.7/l, respectively. However, according to the director of the consulting group A-95 Sergey Kuyun, the shortage of fuel determines its real price on the market at 40 hryvnia/l and 45 hryvnia/l, despite the government’s setting of marginal prices.
From the second half of 2022, Germany is facing a shortage of mustard due to a lack of mustard seeds for its production, the shortage is caused by Russian aggression in Ukraine, since these two countries provide a total of 80% of German imports of this agricultural raw material.
This opinion was expressed by Markus Weck, CEO of the German food industry association Kulinaria Germany, for the German edition Die Welt.
“There is already a shortage of raw materials for mustard. And in the coming weeks and months, the shortage will increase – up to complete supply disruptions. The shocks caused by the coronavirus pandemic are practically nothing compared to what is happening in the markets right now,” the publication quotes the Kulinaria CEO.
According to him, 80% of mustard seeds come to Germany from Ukraine and Russia, and its shortage is already forcing German mustard producers to reduce its production and raise prices for their products. Weck clarified that the prospects for the German mustard market remain uncertain until the end of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“Sowing should take place in the next two weeks. However, this is unlikely in Ukraine, given the current situation. But this means that an important supplier of raw materials for mustard producers is lost in the summer. And whether Russia will then export goods is also unknown,” the expert explained.
The Kulinaria CEO stressed that German mustard producers will have enough stocks of raw materials for a period of several weeks to several months.
Mustard consumption in Germany is one of the highest in the world and is used to prepare a large number of German traditional dishes.
There is no shortage of ventilators for patients with COVID-19 in hospitals, new ventilators will be purchased for reference hospitals, Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said.
“To date, 372 ventilators out of almost 4,000 that are available are involved in the treatment of patients with COVID-19. The devices that we are purchasing today will go to reference hospitals, emergency rooms, children,” he said on air during the “Svoboda Slova” (Freedom of Speech) program on Monday night.
Stepanov said that the Ministry of Health “does not have the task to write off funds from the treasury account as soon as possible.”
“Funds for ventilators were indeed allocated in May, appropriate procedures were launched, contracts have already been signed, we are waiting for the delivery of ventilators,” he said.
Stepanov reported that the task is “to buy modern equipment for 210 reference hospitals”. Funds for these purchases were transferred in July.
“This will be modern equipment that will work effectively, we are talking about CT, angiographs, other equipment. Now the procurement procedure is underway, the proposals and corresponding delivery dates have already been disclosed. According to the terms of agreement, funds are debited [from the treasury account], including after delivery. Therefore, there is nothing to talk about,” he said.
Average vacancy in shopping centers of Ivano-Frankivsk in Q2 2019 is 3.9%, developers retain low construction activity: the terms of commissioning of three shopping and entertainment centers were postponed indefinitely, UTG consulting company (Kyiv) has reported. “The interest of retailers in the Ivano-Frankivsk market is very high. In the shopping centers of the city, there is a demand for fashion, entertainment and catering brands. The availability of professional retail space corresponds to 334.9 square meters per 1,000 inhabitants – below the average for Ukraine. The shortage of retail premises is 27,500 square meters, whereas for 2019-2020 only a building on the territory of the Holovny market with a lettable area of 4,800 square meters was declared for opening, UTG analyst Oksana Havrylevych told Interfax-Ukraine.
According to her, in the city, most of the existing and leading shopping centers were opened in 2004-2014. By now they are morally and physically obsolete.
According to her, in the most high-quality facilities rentals for the premises of the fashion gallery area of 50-100 square meters ranges $15-20 excluding VAT. The total market offer of Ivano-Frankivsk over the past five years has been replenished with only a few small facilities with an area of 1,000-2,000 square meters.
Thus, at the beginning of 2019, three district, eight micro district, 11 specialized, two entertainment centers and four detached hypermarkets were operating in Ivano-Frankivsk.
According to the ICSC classification, excluding small shops and premises of the street-retail format, city markets and detached super-and hypermarkets, the total area of the city’s retail facilities is 87,300 square meters, which corresponds to an indicator of 1,043 square meters per 1 square kilometer of the total area of the city.
Representatives of large associations of industrial and agroindusitral enterprises of Ukraine have asked the Ukrainian prime minister to solve the problem in the sphere of transportation by rail, in particular, the shortage of gondola cars and rolling stock. The request is outlined in an address posted on the website of the Ukrcement association
“Rail transport provides for about 60% of the total volume of cargo transportation in Ukraine. To ensure efficient operation of enterprises of the leading sectors of the economy of our state, it is the freight transportation by rail that is critical. We are only approaching the period of the peak transportation, and the enterprises are already experiencing an acute shortage of gondola cars. These all restrains development of metallurgical, chemical, cement and agrarian sectors, “the associations said.
The authors of the document said that industrialists and agrarians do not receive the ordered cars in due time and do not have access to those for which they have already paid the rent. The cars are staying idle at cross rail stations, and enterprises continue incurring losses and disrupting the implementation of contracts.
In addition, the associations asked the prime minister to invite representatives of the associations of industrial enterprises and the agroindustrial complex to the government meeting, where the report of the board chairman of PJSC Ukrzaliznytsia will be heard.
The letter was signed by the Federation of Metallurgists of Ukraine, the association of enterprises Ukrmetallurgprom, the Ukrainian Grain Association, the Ukrainian Chemists Union, the Ukrainian Association of Ferroalloys Producers and the Association of Cement Manufacturers Ukrcement.
AGRARIAN, GONDOLA CARS, GOVERNMENT, INDUSTRIAL ASSOCIATIONS, SHORTAGE
