The economy is weakening, people are in debt, but there are no salaries: how long will Ukraine suffer from war

Since the beginning of Russian aggression in Ukraine, about 4.8 million jobs have been lost (it was 15.85 million). This is approximately 30% compared to last year.

This is evidenced by the data from the new report of the International Labor Organization (ILO), – reports the head of the Union of Consumers of Utilities Oleg Popenko.

In simple terms:

• 30% of taxes do not go to local and state budgets;
• 30% of Ukrainians were left without wages;
• 30% of Ukrainians cannot pay for housing and communal services. The debt on them is already more than 100 billion hryvnia;
• 30% must be registered with the employment service and receive benefits;
• subsidies will increase by 30%. This is UAH 14 billion per month during the heating season and UAH 2.4 billion during the non-heating season.

“Now we live on other people’s money, this is about 900 million euros a month. How long we will last with such losses is unknown,” Oleg Popenko wrote on Facebook.

What will happen to salaries after the war?

As Alexander Boltyan, an analyst at Esperio, said earlier in a comment to Segodnya, we cannot yet assess the degree of destruction of cities, infrastructure, and, most importantly, human losses. We also don’t know when the war will end. When this clears up, we can assess the demand for labor.

Only after the war will it also become clear how many people will remain abroad and how many will return to Ukraine. The situation on the labor market will depend on this: will it be freer with little competition, or vice versa.

All these factors will affect the salaries of those who work physically present at the workplace.

Those Ukrainians who worked as marketers, representatives of the IT sector, translators, designers, HR specialists who can work remotely will actively compete with Western specialists, working for the foreign market. Work for Ukrainians will, however, in our opinion, in Ukraine, wages will not grow, – Boltyan said.

Enterprises that operate within the country and are focused on the Ukrainian market will not be able to provide a high income to the average worker, as before. External enterprises that provide jobs for our citizens will not be able to raise wages due to high inflation around the world,” he added.

Previously, we said that it would be even easier to fire workers: the Rada adopted a new law. We also wrote how the average salary decreased in Ukraine.