Big research: How the war affected Ukrainian salaries

Work.ua experts researched wartime salaries by position, professional level, sex and knowledge of English. They polled 20,000 Ukrainians and 600 employers from the most widespread fields in Ukraine: finance and banking, logistics, agri-business, commerce, healthcare and pharmaceutics, hotel and restaurant business, tourism. The poll was conducted in July 2022. Respondents who had lost their jobs more than three month ago and had not found a new one yet, were not taken into account in the salary analysis (about 8,000 people).

Mind picked up the most interesting information from the presentation of the research for journalists.

So many respondents lost their jobs (19% respondents were made redundant or fired, the company of 11% shut down). Still the majority of employers reсovered their businesses and saved jobs. 

As many respondents had to relocate to other city or country because of the war.

So many interviewed work in Ukrainian companies. “While a third of employers are businesses with 10-20 years’ history,” clarifies Olga Tarasevych, co-author of the research and HR Director at Work.ua.

of respondents have just secondary education. And most Ukrainian employees graduated from institutes, academies, and universities.

The researchers confirmed that experts with higher education usually are paid higher salaries as well.

That is how many respondents speak basic English. But only 1% do advanced English. And 23% did not learn it at all.

“We expected a little bit different results, as almost everyone now learns English since his/her school years. Ukrainian companies reorient actively on western markets. English will be needed. Moreover, we can see so far that salary level is connected to the knowledge of language.” explains Tarasevych.

of workers mentioned the increase in their salaries. While 52% claimed reduction in remuneration.

Only one tenth of companies bound their salaries to foreing exchange rate, other continue paying in hryvnia regardless of exchange fluctuations.

So many workers do not get bonuses. The most popular kind of bonuses among the rest is up to 20% from their salary (16% respondents).

This is the highest salary level mentioned by employees according to 12 most popular positions.

There are three indices on the graph:

• I quartile (values refer to labour compensation for junior specialists with minimal working skills);
• median (average market level of labour compensation for professionals who have at least 2-3 years’ experience and belong to the intermediate level);
• III quartile (values refer to labour compensation for high-level professionals).

Researchers have found out that the salary level depends on sex as well: “We see from responds of certain employees that on 8 of 12 examined positions men are paid more than women. For example, the male first-class cook gets 18,000 UAH and the female one 15,000, the professional sales manager earns 22,000 when he is male, and 18,000 when female.” 

And this is the highest salary level offered by employers in big cities (Dnipro, Odesa, Lviv, Kharkiv, except for Kyiv).

The researchers eventually concluded that any significant increase in salaries should not be expected. Although, employers might review their payments for labour.