About 8 million people do not work and are not looking for work in Ukraine

There are approximately 8 million economically inactive people in Ukraine — they do not work and are not looking for work. Their return to the labor market is one of the governmentʼs priority tasks.

The Deputy Minister of Economy Tetyana Berezhna declared this at the Kyiv International Economic Forum, Ukrinform reports.

Among the economically inactive population are people with disabilities, veterans who have not found themselves on the labor market, women who cannot combine family and work responsibilities.

"Therefore, a huge concentration of our efforts as a state should be aimed at activating these population groups," Berezhna said.

She reminded that the government, the public sector, and international partners have developed and implemented many programs to encourage Ukrainians to become more competitive in the labor market.

"For example, the Employment Service offers vouchers for retraining, the Coursera platform launched the ReSkill UA project, which provides 30 000 scholarships. But, given the global shortage of personnel in the market, this is a drop in the ocean. Therefore, our joint task should be to increase programs that will help Ukrainians to be more competitive in the labor market," added the deputy minister.

• According to the IMF forecasts, the unemployment rate in Ukraine will decrease from last yearʼs 19.1% to 14.2% in 2024. Next year, it is forecast at the level of 12.7%.
• The lack of workers is becoming a key obstacle to doing business, according to the results of a monthly survey by the Institute of Economic Research and Political Consultation. 61% of surveyed enterprises complained about this problem.

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