Over the past few months, the shortage of human resources has become a serious problem for businesses in Ukraine. In a new monthly enterprise survey conducted by the New Monthly Enterprises Survey, 50% of respondents identified this problem as critical.
According to the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting, conducted in March 2024, the situation with finding workers has worsened. Difficulties have arisen for both skilled and unskilled workers. Compared to February, the percentage of enterprises having problems finding qualified personnel has increased from 31.0% to 38.9%, and for unskilled workers - from 26.5% to 31.7%.
“The survey results reflect the complexity of the situation with access to labor for businesses. For the first time in March, half of the surveyed businesses indicated that this problem had become a significant obstacle to further development. Compared to 2022, when about 20% of respondents mentioned the labor shortage, and last year, when this concerned about a third of respondents, by the end of 2023 this problem began to grow actively,” explained a senior researcher at the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting.
Overall, the ranking of obstacles to doing business has remained largely unchanged: rising prices for raw materials and goods (53%) remain in first place, staff shortages (50%) in second, and job insecurity (46%) in third. The issue of power outages rose from 7th to 4th place (40%) due to damage caused by rocket attacks in March.
“The problem of energy supply has increased due to damage to facilities due to missile attacks in March,” said the executive director of the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting. Last year, this figure did not exceed 40%, but in March 2023 it reached 46%.
Power supply problems were particularly severe for large enterprises that were targeted by missile attacks. At the same time, small and medium-sized enterprises suffered less. After the missile attacks, there were changes in regional assessments of work safety: Cherkasy region topped the rating for this indicator (100% of respondents from this region noted work safety), while Zaporizhia, Vinnytsia and Kharkiv regions traditionally remained in the top of the most dangerous regions. At the same time, Volyn and Zakarpattia regions remain relatively calm.
The monthly survey of the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting involves more than 500 Ukrainian industrial enterprises located in 21 of the 27 regions of Ukraine. The survey in this format has been conducted since May 2022. Enterprise managers compare the results of work in March 2024 with February, assess the indicators at the time of the survey and provide forecasts for the next three/six months or two years. Sometimes the results are compared with the pre-war period, when a similar business survey was conducted.
