The Ukrainian labor market has been facing a "personnel famine" since the beginning of the large-scale war. In the past two years, low competition among job seekers has become the norm, even as the number of vacancies increases.
The number of job offers in Ukraine continues to grow, but competition remains low. For the spring of this year, major job portals report a record number of vacancies, which exceeds even pre-war figures. In the last month alone, the Work.ua portal posted 111,000 job offers, compared to the previous record in September 2023 – 106,000 vacancies. Before the war, the robota.ua portal posted 90 thousand vacancies every month (data for January 2022), and in March 2024 this figure increased to 102 thousand vacancies.
These data indicate the recovery of business. To date, the labor market in 14 regions offers more vacancies than in February 2022. The largest number of jobs in April 2024 appeared in the Rivne, Ternopil, Zakarpattia, Chernivtsi and Zhytomyr regions. The number of offers from employers also increased by 7-9% in Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipropetrovsk and Odesa regions.
However, the number of job seekers almost does not change. 320.6 thousand people posted their resumes on the Work.ua portal in April - almost the same number as in the previous month. However, due to the increase in the number of vacancies, competition continues to decrease.
In terms of job vacancies, the most requested positions remain salesperson, driver and sales manager. According to the State Employment Service, the most vacancies were offered in the service sector. The number of job offers in the hotel and restaurant business and tourism has also increased. In these industries, dishwashers, maids, waiters, bartenders, and restaurant or hotel administrators are most in demand.
To solve the problem of personnel shortage, employers resort to various methods. In particular, they introduce retraining of employees, programs for young professionals, automate processes and use outsourcing. The number of vacancies for which employers are willing to accept veterans, people without experience, pensioners, students and people with disabilities has also increased.
The full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation led to a crisis situation in the labor market due to the migration of citizens and the mobilization of men into the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Among the reasons for the personnel shortage is a significant shortage of qualified personnel and representatives of working professions.
