In just one year, Ukraine lost half a million full-time workers
In the first year of the pandemic alone, the number of full-time workers in Ukraine fell by half a million, causing the country’s Pension Fund to face enormous problems.
Lydia Tkachenko, a senior researcher at the Institute of Demography and Social Research of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, stated this at a press conference in Kyiv, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“In the last two years of the pandemic, there has been a shortage of supplies. Our number of full-time employees has decreased. In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, we lost almost half a million full-time workers. This is a very big loss for the Pension Fund and for all social insurance funds.
We are already accustomed to the fact that everything is tense and unfavorable, but for the last 2-3 months, since November, we have been living in such stress about war, coups and God knows what. It’s amazing how half the country hasn’t left yet. This is impossible - I don’t know how people who watch the news sleep later. This is some kind of nightmare - how can you work normally, make plans for retirement, and how can you talk about introducing funded pensions if you have a war on your agenda?” the demographer noted.
According to her, this year will be very difficult for the Pension Fund, since even without a strict lockdown there will be a decline in activity.
“People will still work less and earn less. And there will be no external incentives from the state to increase wages and employment, because we see that the minimum wage is practically frozen - it will be 6,5 thousand all year. It will be revised only from December and will become 6. This means that it is frozen,” Tkachenko summed up.
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