Ukraine is winning the economic war against Russia

Since 2022 mobilisation, migration and war have caused the workforce to shrink by over a fifth, to 13m people. Demand is strong: the number of job openings has reached 65,000 a week, up from 7,000 during the first weeks of the war—but the average opening attracts only 1.3 applications, compared with two in 2021. Wages are rising. The economy and defence ministries are locked in a tug of war over mobilisation: where to strike the right balance for the country’s future. Ukraine’s civilian leadership has so far declined the maximalist demands of military leaders, to the detriment of the front line.

There are no easy fixes. Now even industries deemed critical can protect only half of their workers from the front line. Hiring many more women is tricky: there are nearly as many of them who have migrated abroad as men who are at the front or have come back from it unable to work, says Hlib Vyshlinsky of the Centre for Economic Strategy, a think-tank in Kyiv.

Source: The Economist.

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