Some 85% of 355 business representatives polled by Gradus Research with the support of the Kiev School of Economics (KSE) as part of their study partially or completely suspended the work of their companies due to the war.
“The war has made significant changes in the work of Ukrainian business: about 85% of the business stopped working in partial operation or even stopped work altogether, among which 1% stopped their activities and do not plan to resume, and 35% suspended it, waiting for better times,” the authors of the study said. release on the CSE website.
At the same time, sectoral transformation as one of the ways to save a business from closure turned out to be relevant for 37% of the enterprises that took part in the study – in 21% of cases, a business is in the process of sectoral transformation. At the same time, 16% of respondents have completely or partially transformed, and the same number can potentially join this process.
“The most popular business areas since the beginning of the war have been the retail trade in food and non-food products – in total, up to 24% of the businesses that took part in the study account for these two areas,” the release says.
According to Gradus, 86% of businesses are operating with less workload than before the war, but there are those whose workload has even increased.
“As the difficulties that arise in organizing the work of a business, half of the audience cites a lack of orders. Up to a third of respondents (29%) complain about problems with logistics,” the researchers said.
With regard to government assistance, 37% of respondents, according to the results of the study, are counting on tax holidays.
Other expectations include assistance with organizing logistics, access to cheaper finance, product promotion and keeping key employees from going abroad, military service.
The authors of the study note that the difficult times of business significantly affect the financial support of employees and suppliers – 3-5% of businesses pay relatively large payments, 14-19% make payments at the pre-war level. Other businesses have either reduced the share of payments or stopped altogether – 39% do not pay wages, and 29% do not pay suppliers.
The report clarifies that the survey was conducted by the method of self-completion of the questionnaire in a mobile application in cities with a population of more than 50 thousand people, the sample was 355 respondents.
Polish Ambassador to Ukraine Bartosz Cichocki, Turkish Ambassador to Ukraine Yağmur Ahmet Güldere and Apostolic Nuncio to Ukraine Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas continue to work in Kyiv, the Polish Ambassador to Ukraine said.
“There are also a nuncio and a Turkish ambassador,” Cichocki said on Twitter on Wednesday.
So he responded to the media’s suggestion that he was the only Western ambassador who did not leave Kyiv.
Suspension from work due to lack of vaccination against COVID-19 and verification of vaccination certificates in public places will be appealed in the Kyiv District Administrative Court.
According to the press service of the court, the court has registered f lawsuits against the State Space Agency of Ukraine to appeal against orders to dismiss from work. In particular, the plaintiffs ask the court to declare unlawful and cancel the orders by which they were suspended from work, and resume them at work.
In addition, the court opened proceedings on the case seeking to appeal against certain provisions of Resolution No. 1236 dated December 9, 20 on the establishment of quarantine and the introduction of restrictive anti-epidemic measures in order to prevent the spread of acute respiratory disease COVID-19 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in Ukraine.
In particular, the plaintiff, among other things, asks the court to cancel paragraph 18 of the said resolution regarding the granting of the right to employees of the National Police, the National Guard, officials authorized by local authorities to conduct random check of documents, as well as documents confirming vaccination against COVID-19 on the streets, in parks, other public places (catering establishments, entertainment establishments, transport).
As reported, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine instructed the heads of state bodies, heads of enterprises, institutions and organizations to ensure the removal of unvaccinated employees from work from November 8 until they are vaccinated.
More and more Ukrainians are returning to Poland to work, the Analytical Department of the Gremi Personal international employment company has said.
According to the Polish Social Insurance Fund, some 22,000 more foreign labour migrants were registered in July. In total, the register contains 628,000 foreigners, payers of ZUS (insurance payments) and, first of all, they are Ukrainians.
Earlier in its research, the Analytical Center of Gremi Personal said: “The pandemic is a chance for Polish employers to keep labour migrants who were previously going to work in other countries. However, if there is no more loyal visa program at the state level, as well as promoting the assimilation of Ukrainians, after lockdown, they will increasingly choose not Poland, but, for example, the Czech Republic and Germany. So far, the flow of Ukrainians to Poland is the most stable due to the most convenient logistics and relatively stable economic situation in Poland. At the same time, the supply of jobs from Polish employers in logistics, food production, furniture industry, household appliances and construction is increasing. In these areas, work for Ukrainians will be until the end of the year.”
Gremi Personal also said that “this year in August, significantly fewer Ukrainians working in Poland started to temporarily leave for Ukraine to prepare children for the new school year; at the same time, a tangible increase in labour migrants is expected from September, when Ukrainians traditionally go to work in Poland, and Polish enterprises that employ Ukrainians are increasing production volumes before the New Year holidays.”
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has called on the leaders of Ukrainian enterprises to allow their employees to work remotely.
“I personally ask business executives – if possible, allow your employees to work at home, remotely. Especially those who have children and who cannot leave them because of quarantine at schools and kindergartens,” he said in his video address to Ukrainian people posted on his Facebook page on Friday night.
The prices for construction and assembly work in Ukraine in August 2019 decreased by 0.9% compared with July, while the increase in prices in July 2019 compared with June 2019 was 0.4%.
According to the State Statistics Service, these figures are given without taking into account the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea and Sevastopol and part of temporarily occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
According to the service, the rise in prices for construction and assembly work in August 2019 from August 2018 was 5.3%.
According to the report, in general the growth in prices for construction and assembly work in January-August 2019 compared with January-August 2019 amounted to 8.3%.
The decline in construction prices in August 2019 compared with June 2019 was recorded in all areas of construction.
The prices for construction and assembly work grew by 23% in 2018, and growth in 2017 was 13.4%, 9.2% in 2016 and 27.1% in 2015 compared with the previous year.
