Category: NEWS

For first time since February, Ukraine’s labor shortage shows a slight decrease

Nowadays, the top obstacle to doing business in Ukraine is labor shortages. Nevertheless, a July survey demonstrates a 5 percentage points decrease of the share of companies citing this problem compared with June. The Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting (IER) conducted it among 472 industrial enterprises.
For the first time since February 2026, the share of companies reporting a labor shortage decreased to 66%, compared with 71% in June. Mainly microbusinesses drove the decline: 34% of respondents in that segment cited staffing as their main obstacle, compared with 49% in June.
By contrast, midsize businesses showed a slightly worsened picture: 74% of respondents cited labor shortages as their top problem in July, down from 73% in June.
The reason of such results may be a break in the negative labor-market trend, or adaptation of businesses to difficult wartime conditions. They had to make more flexible schedules, train workers without relevant qualifications, and take similar measures.

Geographically, more than 80% of surveyed businesses facing a labor shortage were situated in Chernivtsi, Lviv, Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, and Zhytomyr oblasts.

According to Oksana Kuziakiv, executive director of the IER, 73% of businesses answered positively when asked directly about feeling a labor shortage.

She specified that the problem is felt most by midsize (85%) and large (88%) enterprises. Chemical manufacturing (84%), construction-materials production (79%), and metallurgy and metalworking (78%) are the most concerned among industries. The situation is the best in microbusinesses (34%) and the printing industry (55%).

As 79.4% of businesses said, labor conscription significantly affects staffing levels. Second most acute problem is restrictions on draft deferrals for workers, according to 57.8% of respondents. The third obstacle is workers leaving the country (52.3%).

Also, the second-biggest overall obstacle to doing business is rising prices for raw materials, supplies and goods remained. The share of companies citing it rose to 57% from 50% in June. The IER said that it is the highest level in three years, since August 2023.

The third major difficulty is safety. 44% of business representatives named it their main problem, compared with 41% in June. It means that, for six months in a row, safety concerns have ranked among the main three difficulties.

Traditionally, workplace safety is a more acute problem for large enterprises (54%). Meanwhile, only 28% of microbusinesses consider it as their main obstacle.

Overall, approximately 70% of Ukrainian businesses reported labor shortages in June 2026.

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AI E-Government expanses into jobs and benefits in Kazakhstan

A deeper overhaul of Kazakhstan e-government system is to come. Artificial intelligence is expected to identify services citizens need, to match unemployed people with vacancies. It will also assist officials in identifying potential recipients of social assistance.
Minister of AI and Digital Development Zhaslan Madiyev and Minister of Labor and Social Protection Askarbek Yertayev outlined the plans at a government meeting on August 11. 50 of the most frequently used public services currently work with eGov GPT, which the government was testing earlier this year. Madiyev said that these account for around 30% of citizens’ requests. By the end of the year, that share would increase to 70%. According to Madiyev, applicants used the assistant over 150,000 times during its first four months. As an official government description of the system says, it can identify the appropriate public service from a user’s request and help complete it online.
Users should describe their situation to eGov GPT (“I need to register my address” or “My child is starting school this year”). Then, the assistant identifies the relevant procedure, helps prepare the application, and guides it through the government system.
E-government system started to appear in Kazakhstan in the 2000s. It led the country to the 24th place among 193 states in the latest UN E-Government Survey. Countries’ online public services, the infrastructure and human capacity to use them are assessed by the index.
Earlier, digitizing a service meant that a citizen could fill in the required form online instead of travelling to a Public Service Centre. Now the work will become even more simple.
Madiyev reports a 30% downfall of the number of requests handled directly by Public Service Centre staff. So, the plan of authorities’ is a gradual transformation of the centres into what they call AI offices. It will be possible for visitors to submit a request through eGov GPT, apply for an identity card, passport, or driving licence through a terminal. They will also be able to collect the finished document from a parcel locker, including at weekends.
Also, government-held information on an unemployed person’s occupation, qualifications, and skills will be compared with employers’ requirements by a new Digital Employment Service. When it finds a match, it will send an offer to the citizen through eGov, the state employment portal Enbek.kz, or an SMS from the 1414 service number. Also, recommendation of training or retraining, or relocation in another region if a suitable vacancy is available will be possible.
The Pavlodar region in north-eastern Kazakhstan was the first to experience a trial in July. Yertayev reports that 962 potential jobseekers subsequently found work.
They expect to introduce algorithms into social assistance from October to identify potential recipients of state payments in advance, with the help of government databases.

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