According to data released by the IOM representation at a press conference in Kyiv, about 70% of the total number of Ukrainians working abroad are men, who are employed in construction and retail. The vast majority of women abroad work in agriculture or are hired as domestic help. Most often, residents of rural areas and small towns, where there is a shortage of jobs, go abroad to work. At the same time, remittances from Ukrainians abroad amount to $5 to 7 billion per year, according to Interfax-Ukraine.
The IOM representation also draws attention to the widespread prevalence of fraudulent schemes in the field of employment abroad and reminds of the existence since 2005 of migrant consultation centers, which operate in five regions of Ukraine and provide free consultations to people planning to go abroad.
According to the head of the IOM representation in Ukraine, Jeffrey Labovitz, there are very few legal ways to go abroad (in particular, the pilot Czech project for highly qualified specialists), and the most common illegal scheme for leaving abroad is obtaining a visa through a travel agency and staying in another country longer than the specified period.