Economic booking will not solve the problem of staff shortage that already exists in Ukraine – Metinvest CEO

Staff shortages are a major challenge for Ukraine’s industrial enterprises, as they are now facing a situation where they cannot increase production due to a shortage of employees.

Yuriy Ryzhenkov, CEO of Metinvest, told Forbes in an interview.

‘Since the beginning of the war, 9,000 of our employees, or 16% of our workforce, have been mobilised. Why is this happening? Because it is much easier to mobilise men from a large, transparent enterprise. So, we need to think about how to address this issue specifically for transparent companies. As a strategic enterprise, we have a draft deferral for 50% of our employees, but this hasn’t resolved the situation,’ Ryzhenkov says.

He explains that it usually takes 2-3 years to train a specialist, so the company simply doesn’t have time to train new staff. Instead, the economic reservation proposed by officials will not solve the problem of staff shortages, but will only divide society.

‘Economic draft deferral carries political and social risks and could divide society. Additionally, many of our employees earn between UAH15,000 and UAH30,000. This means that they no longer qualify for the economic deferral, but they remain very important to us. Economic draft deferral alone will not solve the issue. There needs to be a comprehensive set of solutions that allow the economy to function while still ensuring enough people are mobilised into the army,’ Ryzhenkov is convinced.

Earlier, it was reported that the Presidential Office had abandoned the idea of economic booking, which provides for reservations only for Ukrainians with high salaries. This approach caused a wave of criticism among the military, experts and the public. But later, some officials returned to this idea.

Instead, economists say that the very idea of reservations is not to save anyone from service, but to prevent the economy from collapsing due to the withdrawal of qualified and experienced employees from enterprises, who require a lot of time and resources to train. Therefore, the government’s reservation model should first be discussed with Ukrainian employers.