The expression "time to get out of this country" has been a formula of life for millions of Ukrainians for 20 years. No work in your homeland? Don't like corruption, chaos and bad roads? A whole world is open to you: go wherever you want and work anywhere. Fortunately, the time for "new guest workers" was suitable – from the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine plunged into the abyss of crisis, the Western (and not only) world was basking in the luxury of economic prosperity and growth.
Workers, cheap and ready for any labor, were needed everywhere. However, in 2008, the global fairy tale ended. Jobs became scarce, and a ruthless struggle for them unfolded, in which victory will naturally end up in the hands of the local population, not incoming labor migrants. In Ukraine, few have yet caught this trend. According to a survey by Research & Branding Group, thoughts of moving abroad visit every second Ukrainian.
People can be understood – work here has been bad after 2008, and no improvement is yet visible. But our workers are not expected abroad either, unless they are unique specialists: scientists, brilliant doctors and engineers, athletes – such are always needed everywhere, but that is a separate conversation. At the same time, there is no need to fall into depression. Parallel to the economic crisis, globalization of the global labor market is growing. Entire sectors of the economy are emerging where it does not matter what city a person's workplace is in or what passport they have. Ukrainians may be able to grab onto this trend.
Great Europe, but no place to work
According to various data, 5-7 million Ukrainian workers work abroad, most illegally, in low-prestige jobs. They send most of their earnings to their families. Last year, their remittances even exceeded the volume of foreign investment and amounted to $7.5 billion. Many of our people have already received residency in EU countries. The European Commission on Migration and Refugees recognized Ukrainians as leaders among migrants (in 2011, according to the commission, more than 200,000 of our compatriots received residence permits).
However, the times when Ukrainians went en masse for work seem to have passed. Due to the protracted crisis and tightening of migration policy in EU countries, there is nowhere special to "get out". The Association Agreement will not fix the situation: the document contains no norms that will facilitate labor migration. Representatives of the European Commission have not forgotten to remind us of this.
Meanwhile, in Southern Europe, favored by our people, even locals lack work; they are taking on jobs they used to turn their noses up at. Europeans are increasingly becoming waiters and construction workers. Ukrainians are turning from service workers into competitors for them. Recently, the story of a young Spaniard, Bejamin Serra Bosch, who, with three higher education diplomas, cleans toilets in a London cafe because there is no work at home (more than half of his peers are idle), went viral.
For now, the situation is relatively tolerable in Poland, where employers need someone to replace Poles who have massively left for work in Western Europe. True, Ukrainians are mainly taken for seasonal work harvesting crops (about 500–700 euros per month). Non-seasonal work in Poland is tight. And there are often problems with visas. Although Poland has not officially tightened the rules for issuing them, Ukrainians are being hindered unofficially. You have to wait up to three months in line to submit an application to the consulate. "Due to artificial queues, seasonal workers from Ukraine find it harder to come to Poland," says Mirosław Maliszewski, chairman of the Association of Polish Gardeners, complaining about the shortage of workers during harvest.
The situation on the labor market in Germany and the Nordic countries is fairly stable. But it is exactly there that flows of labor migration from all over the EU are heading now, and it is difficult for Ukrainians to compete with EU citizens for jobs.
No room for newcomers
Those of our people who have long established themselves in EU countries somehow manage and try to stay on the job (some, however, are slowly returning and opening small businesses in Ukraine – shops and cafes – with the money they earned). Though they have to tighten their belts: due to the crisis, employers are cutting wages. "If before I received about a thousand euros, now they have reduced my hours and salary to 800 euros. I am saved by the fact that I live and eat with the employers, and I send almost everything I earn to my family; my nine-year-old son remained at home," complains Iryna Hladiy, a native of the Lviv region. According to her, fewer and fewer new workers are going to Italy, because the chances of finding a job are very small.
Russia: turning to one's own
For now, the largest labor market for our migrants remains Russia. Between 1 and 2 million Ukrainians work there, according to various data. At the same time, unlike the crisis-ridden EU countries, the labor market in Russia, at least in large cities and resource regions, is not stagnating; wages are growing (already matching European ones in many positions) and new vacancies are opening. However, in recent years, the employment situation in the Russian Federation for our citizens has become more complicated. There are several reasons.
Firstly, there is strong competition from Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Kyrgyz, who are ready to receive wages that Ukrainians do not agree to.
Secondly, our people could work in more skilled jobs that Central Asians are not hired for, but here there are their own difficulties. In the last five years or so, Russia has advanced far in terms of legalizing the labor market. Getting a more or less decent job without official registration and with an illegal salary is becoming increasingly difficult. And official employment of foreigners is a headache for employers. They need to get a quota for foreign labor (which takes a huge amount of time), and then pay 30% income tax for the first 6 months (instead of 13%, as Russians pay).
Naturally, enterprises will only do this if there is a great need to attract this specific employee. But such a need usually does not exist (except, again, for unique specialists). After all, finding an employee of similar qualifications for the same salary among Russian citizens has not been difficult in recent years.
And this is the third factor. Russia is developing very unevenly. Along with prosperous regions, there are areas with widespread unemployment. And for unemployed Russians from, say, Ryazan, the topic 'why are jobs in Moscow given not to us but to migrants' is very relevant. Especially after Biryulyovo. The authorities are trying to respond to this, and overall the course is set to replace foreigners with Russian citizens to solve the unemployment problem in depressed regions. The process is slow but ongoing, which means conditions for migrant workers will continue to tighten.
True, in Russia they like to say that they are interested in replacing Tajiks and Uzbeks with Ukrainians, but so far these are just words – our fellow citizens as foreign workers fall under the same blanket. The situation could only be remedied by a political decision to open the Russian labor market to Ukrainians (in exchange, for example, for joining the Customs Union), but so far there is no talk of that.
Read the continuation: 'I earn money without leaving home, like in Europe'
Alexandra KHARCHENKO, Antonina TSIMBALYUK,
Dmitry GOMON, 'Vesti – Reporter'.