Five labor market gaps: what we see in working with employers and people in the Kharkiv region
The frontline context changes the requirements of both employers and employees: not only the profession and salary become important, but also safety, work format, accessibility to the workplace, housing and booking. In our work, we see how these factors overlap and form a much more complex picture than simply «there are vacancies» or «there are no people».
Our activities largely consist of conversations: with employers, IDPs and veterans, college professors, and community leaders.
Therefore, we look at this problem not only through the prism of reports and statistics, but also through the decisions of employers, implemented projects, and the fates of specific people in the front-line Kharkiv region, where everything is felt more acutely.
At the end of June, there were about 235,000 open positions on the Unified Vacancy Portal, and only 93,000 people had official unemployed status. But dividing these numbers one by one and concluding that «there is enough work for everyone» would be a mistake: the portal aggregates ads from various sources, and the official register does not cover everyone who is actually looking for work.
In May, 691% of industrial enterprises surveyed reported that a shortage of workers was preventing them from operating, the highest figure in four years of conducting such surveys.
The largest number of vacancies is concentrated in Kyiv, while the largest number of registered job seekers is in Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Odessa regions. In the spring, 19 people applied for one vacancy at the employment service in Lozova, Kharkiv region. In Kyiv, the situation is the opposite: there are significantly more vacancies than people willing to fill them.
Employers say there are no people. People say there are no decent jobs. The strangest thing is that both sides are mostly right.
CEO of UCA Oleksii Kurtsev formulates the essence of this paradox.
In our work, we have learned to view this paradox not as a single problem, but as five separate, overlapping gaps:
01
between a person and a sought-after profession – the market needs working specialties, and the experience of most seekers is different;
02
between a place where there are people and a place where there is work – Kyiv and Lozova live in different labor market realities;
03
between a vacancy and an acceptable vacancy – the job exists, but does not pass the test of salary, schedule, safety, or access to it;
04
between a diploma and a job – education too often ends with a certificate, not a job;
05
between employment and maintenance – a person goes to work, but almost no one measures whether they stay there after six months.
A person may lack the necessary profession, a suitable vacancy may be in another city, working conditions may not meet their capabilities, and training that could help may not guarantee a transition to a real workplace.
Even employment does not mean that the problem is solved: what matters is whether the person will stay in that job.
In our practice, we regularly see vacancies where the amount itself is no longer a problem.
One illustrative example is a vacancy for a painter with a salary of 50 thousand hryvnias per month, while the average offer for this profession in the Kharkiv region is only 18,497 hryvnias, according to the employment service. The offer is 2.7 times higher than the average - and the vacancy still remains unfilled.
The same story with the team of tilers and drywall installers – also 50 thousand hryvnias each.
The most telling example is a vacancy for an electrician with a salary of 150 thousand hryvnias. The employer has already provided housing, meals, and reservations for mobilization. And despite this, 12 unfilled positions remain, because the shift method and work at heights outweigh even that amount for some candidates.
This is an important point: salary is only one component of the employment decision. Money may get a person an interview. But everything else convinces them to stay at the job.
The fourth gap is between a diploma and a job, which we saw with our own eyes during a roundtable discussion organized together with partners.
After a month and a half of free training, she retrained as a CNC machine operator.
Today she receives an official salary of 50 thousand hryvnias, and next month she should receive 70.
A seamstress became a CNC machine operator at fifty. Not because a course was offered. Because someone built a bridge between her and the machine.
such Oleksii Kurtsev summed up this story.
It shows that training alone does not solve the problem. There needs to be a connection between what a person is being trained and what the employer actually needs. And there needs to be a route that helps them get from training to a specific job.
It was the analysis of these five gaps, not an abstract theory, that determined the logic of the second phase of our "Path of Opportunities" project.
We built the participant's route in such a way as to close the gaps sequentially: first, a confirmed request from the employer, then training for this request, then a professional trial at a real workplace - and only then the first working day.
We pay special attention to the fifth gap – job retention, which is traditionally almost never measured.
Training programs, employment services, donor projects, and our own program too - first of all, they count how many people have learned and how many have found work. Therefore, in the new pilot, we are changing two things. First: support does not end with employment. Second: we will count not only those who have found work, but also those who are working after six months. If these numbers turn out to be worse than beautiful, I will publish them.
declared Oleksii Kurtsev.
Employment is not the end point, but the beginning of a new stage. If a person does not stay at work, it is important to understand why: whether expectations do not correspond to real conditions, whether there are difficulties with adaptation, whether the schedule does not suit, or whether there are other barriers.
That is why in the "Path of Opportunities 2.0" we want to measure not only the number of people who have completed training or entered the workforce, but also what happens to them next.
We apply the same logic to the issue of returning Ukrainians from abroad, where today there are about 5.6 million refugees.
According to the Gradus study, 53% respondents in the EU are considering returning in 2026. A year ago, there were 68% of them.
We consider the question «do Ukrainians want to return» to be as simplistic as the question «do people want to work.» Desire alone is not enough. What matters is whether a person sees the conditions for a full life – work, security, housing, the ability to provide for themselves and their family, and prospects for their children.
People don't return to the state and they don't return to slogans. People return to their lives provided they see where it is possible at home.
That is why the route to a profession that we are testing in the Kharkiv pilot works according to the same logic for people who are thousands of kilometers from home today. Return is a decision about what life will be like after returning and whether there is a place for it in Ukraine.
We continue to analyze these gaps in practice within the framework of the "Path of Opportunities 2.0" project and will continue to share the results.
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