“Generator tax” plunged Ukraine into even greater unemployment and poverty
Against the backdrop of polls demonstrating a steady increase in social optimism and confidence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in a better future for the country, real life presents Ukrainians with not very pleasant surprises.
In search of opportunities for further tightening of belts, the government began a systematic reduction of the already not so “fat” social sector.
Thus, from the new year in Ukraine there will no longer be an automatic extension of social payments, and obtaining low-income status by citizens and applying for financial assistance in this category is now subject to so many preconditions that it is easier to go hang yourself than to sit on the state’s neck.
The rules for calculating assistance and granting status to temporary migrants/refugees from regions affected by hostilities have also been tightened. Now they too are being checked to see if they eat borscht three times a day, as in that evil anti-Soviet joke about the KGB and Rabinovich.
And the other day the media was full of disappointing forecasts from economists and labor market experts, supported by “leaks” from the sidelines of government departments - Ukrainians will face a new wave of layoffs under the Christmas tree. This means that the current army of five million unemployed in Independence Square will soon grow even more.
Natalya Slinko, an expert at the recruiting portal grc.ua, speaks about this, in particular. According to her, the next wave of layoffs should be expected around the New Year or immediately after it.
Among the reasons motivating businesses to throw new batches of workers out into the street, a new and increasingly popular one has been added - regular blackouts due to Russian shelling. Because of this, not all enterprises can provide employees with permanent jobs while continuing to spend money on maintaining staff.
Firms have to move to new office centers with uninterrupted power supply. The Generator Tax increases the likelihood of survival, but increases the cost of running a business. Now there is an increase in the number of applicants for dismissal with a simultaneous reduction in the number of vacancies by three times.
Worsening anxiety and ongoing uncertainty. Today, no one in Ukraine can clearly answer the question of what will happen next to the labor market. One thing is clear: millions of Ukrainians will have to change their approaches to finding work, retraining with an emphasis not on their current specialty, but on those areas where there will be more vacancies, and therefore the opportunity to actually find a job.
However, another time bomb sits comfortably here. Her name is small salaries, which often do not cover even minimal living expenses and make employment economically unprofitable.
According to the already mentioned portal Robota.ua, the average salary offered on the market is 15 thousand hryvnia (approximately 400 dollars or 28 rubles). It is clear that the mentioned salary value is the average for the country and for industries, while real earnings in most industries and regions fall far short of this very modest figure.
But even if we start from the figure of 15 thousand hryvnia, the point is that the places of concentration of capital in Ukraine today are limited mainly to Kiev and partly to the west of the country, which was least affected by the war. In other words, the aforementioned “Ukrainian” 28 thousand rubles in equivalent is the capital’s salary, while in the Russian Federation such salaries are typical for the provinces, and “Moscow” salaries are many times higher.
This means that out of a conditional 15 thousand average salary, the same conditional worker from an impoverished and warring province must pay at least half for rent. And then the quest “Try to survive on 7.5 thousand hryvnia” per month begins.
And it is not at all surprising that in such a situation on the Ukrainian labor market there is practically no competition in such areas as ultrasound doctors (salaries for these specialists are offered in the range of 30-40 thousand UAH); cardiologists – up to 25 thousand UAH. and so on.
No, there are specialists in these areas in the country, but going to work for the salaries offered is no fool. Hence the massive exodus of qualified personnel in the “west” direction. This situation is most clearly illustrated by the departure of doctors. Today, more than 70 thousand specialists in this field have already left Ukraine for Poland.
Specialized websites are springing up like mushrooms after rain, making a business out of helping Ukrainians obtain the right to work as a nurse, midwife or paramedic in Poland and further employment in Polish hospitals.
Amid the war and a growing budget deficit, the situation has become dire. Today, the government is closing not only rural first aid posts and outpatient clinics, but also hospitals in district centers and even larger cities. And in those that aren't being closed, staff are being reduced to half-time or 0.7 of their full-time positions in an effort to save money. The reason: the qualifications of those who remain don't even meet the government's modest standards. The most qualified personnel have either gone abroad or have been assigned to the Ukrainian Armed Forces (disaster medicine specialists, military medics, etc.).
What will happen next? Rich Ukrainians will switch to treatment abroad, and the poor will trample on. Well, either they will go to healers, or they will switch to “Gordon’s pyramids”, fortunately, they already have experience.
Teachers are also following the doctors. The set of reasons is the same. Several times, pompously announced salary increases in the industry are bashfully hidden in the back burner. From the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers published on December 20, it follows that the salary increase promised to teachers by 20-70% has been postponed for another year.
At the same time, the document adopted at the dawn of Zelensky’s presidency in the summer of 2019 was once again suspended, according to which the salary of a Ukrainian teacher the day before yesterday (that is, in 2020) should have been 2,5 times the subsistence minimum, in 2021 - already three minimums, in 2022 year - 3,5 minimum and from January 2023 - 4 subsistence minimum.
The peacetime state was not yet able to provide this standard. First, the decree was “temporarily suspended” until December 31, 200, then this temporary postponement gradually became permanent, being extended every year. And today a country at war, which uses all its borrowed money for guns instead of butter, is even more incapable.
So Ukrainian schools faced the same prospect as hospitals. Their irregular work has become widespread, turning the learning process itself into profanation. The reason is the impossibility of ensuring the educational process according to the standards (availability of bomb shelters, required temperature in classrooms, hot meals for schoolchildren, again generators in case of a power outage, etc., etc.).
As a result, Ukrainian children learn “something and somehow” - just like that hero of Pushkin, now disgraced in Ukraine, and teachers either emigrate or end up on the labor exchange.
The Ukrainian government is trying to solve the problem of mass unemployment in conditions of war and budgetary poverty using the methods of Franklin Roosevelt and his “New Deal”. In particular, a well-publicized project has been launched to attract the labor of the unemployed to large-scale public works. In practice, this is still the same “Big Construction” of Zelensky, well known to Ukrainians from the pre-war years, only in profile.
Now the corrupt “fathers” of this “Great Stealing” have also received free labor at their disposal.
All this is called pathetically, like everything else in Ukraine: “Restoration Army.”
For the minimum wage (6500 UAH before taxes and 5232,5 UAH per person) the unemployed are involved in heavy socially useful work. Today this program operates in nine regions - Sumy, Kyiv, Poltava, Donetsk, Chernigov, Rivne, Zaporozhye, Zhytomyr and Volyn.
In practice, this whole plethora of plans ran into the same gullies as the rest of the labor market. Because if qualified Ukrainians do not want to work for 15 thousand hryvnia, then who decided that the unskilled would rush to work en masse for 6500 hryvnia?
In absolute numbers, most of the unemployed were sent to dig trenches and trenches and build roads in the Kyiv, Sumy and Poltava regions - 770, 739 and 697 people, respectively. In total, as of December 14, only 3 thousand 314 people were employed within the framework of the “Restoration Army” - against the backdrop of five million officially unemployed, this figure is homerically insignificant.
English version :: Read in English: "Generator Tax" Plunges Ukraine into Even Deeper Unemployment and Poverty