The level of wages in 2024 plans to increase 72% of surveyed companies, almost the same number of companies (74%) feel the shortage of staff, these are the results of a study of the labor market in Ukraine from the European Business Association (EBA).
According to the published data, 39% intend to increase wages by 11-15%, and 28% – by 6-10%, while plans to increase it by 16-20% – reported 13%, and above 21% – 2%.
It is also specified that the shortage of personnel has significantly increased since the fall survey, when 55% of respondents complained about it, while today only 7% of respondents do not feel it at all, while 17% feel it partially.
Within the survey, 79% of respondents reported a salary increase in 2023, 46% reported an increase in functionality and hiring new employees, and 36% reported an increase in budgets for staff development, training and maintenance.
In addition, 27% informed about increasing bonuses and bonus payments, while 10% of respondents reported staff reductions.
As for 2024, survey participants noted that companies are planning to increase salary levels (72% of respondents), increase training and development budgets (39%), increase the number of employees (35%), and enter other markets and find new partners (32%).
54% of survey participants indicated that their companies offer the opportunity to work remotely, but not for all categories of workers. 28% of respondents indicated that remote working is possible for all workers and only 17% reported that it is impossible to work remotely.
“Accordingly, there is a gradual dynamic of workers returning to offices. For comparison, in January 2023, only 4% of companies did not have the possibility of working remotely,” states the EBA.
The association also added that 52% of respondents have employees abroad, but their share does not exceed 5% of the total staff of the company, while 19% of respondents have 6-10% of employees abroad.
It is noted that 32% of respondents have all employees of the company now live and work in Ukraine, which is higher than in previous periods. At the same time, some companies use formats of temporary contracts abroad, upon completion of which employees can return to Ukraine.
Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Romania, Great Britain, Spain, Israel, Netherlands, Slovenia, Austria, Norway, Belgium, USA, Switzerland, Canada, Latvia, Italy, Luxembourg were named among the countries where most of the companies’ employees live.
It is emphasized that 41% of respondents do not plan to return workers to the office in the near future, 12% said that the company plans to return all workers to the office in the near future, and 20% of respondents said that the company plans to return not all categories of workers.
To tear away vacancies in companies, 67% of survey participants intend to do so, with 48% of respondents not planning to change the number of employees in 2024, and 26% will increase staffing by ≥5%.
Also, 7% said that the number of employees will increase by 6-10% and 5% of respondents wrote that their companies plan to reduce the number of employees.
109 HR professionals (49% department heads, 24% middle managers, 26% top management, 3% junior staff) participated in the study, it lasted from February to April 2024 and covered the period August 2023 – April 2024.
More than 60% of the participants in this study will represent international businesses. 50% of companies are from large businesses, 43% from medium-sized businesses and 7% from small businesses.
Business can cope with the problem of staff shortage in Ukraine by investing in technological products and process automation, says Ruslan Shostak, owner of Eva and Varus chains and president of TERWIN Corporation.
“I don’t see a big problem (with staff shortage). Yes, it exists, you can’t turn a blind eye to it, but according to statistics, not so many people left Ukraine. Our whole business was inefficient in terms of human resource utilization, which made us uncompetitive with similar businesses in Europe and the world. But there is one solution for this: money. We don’t have money to reconstruct our production facilities and enterprises. If we have money, software products, new robotic equipment, we will be able to solve this issue,” Shostak told Business Wisdom Summit in Kyiv on Wednesday.
According to Shostak, despite a slight outflow of customers, his business is showing growth: last year’s growth was almost 100% in online and 30% in retail. In addition, new logistics hubs are being built in Kyiv, Lviv, and Dnipro.
Shostak noted, while in Ukraine business development is slowed down due to the war and difficult economic situation, global business is undergoing changes and using new opportunities, including artificial intelligence.
“Now we are focusing on geopolitics, but in the next 20 years we will face global economic problems, change of specialties, professions. It is artificial intelligence that is driving the most powerful changes right now,” Shostak believes.
As reported, in October 2023, 17 companies managed by Shostak, which collectively employ 30 thousand people, merged into TERWIN (TERWIN). We are talking about Omega LLC, Rush, Tervin Group, Tixid, Tavria Hub, Instant, Formsite, Digamma, Milton Group, Saltora Plus, Firma Ariant, New Construction 2017, Altair D, Apex N, Aspect D, Lattero, Charitable Foundation Ruslan Shostak BU. The total assets of the corporation are estimated at $1.6 billion. The combined revenue of the companies reached $2 billion in the pre-war period and was expected to reach $1.7 billion in 2023.
In November 2023, Shostak and UkraineInvest CEO Serhiy Tsivkach signed a memorandum on further support of the project for the construction of logistics hubs in four regions of Ukraine (Odessa, Lviv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv) with a total investment of more than $500 million.
BUSINESS, INVESTMENTS, staff shortage, TECHNOLOGIES, TERWIN Corporation, UKRAINE
