Why employers in Ukraine are increasingly refusing to hire men
Ukrainian companies quietly refuse to hire men who are liable for military service and may be mobilized.
Since the beginning of the full-scale war, Ukraine's labor market has undergone significant changes. The huge migration of people abroad and within the country, the mobilization of men, and the reorientation of businesses have led to both a shortage of workers and an increase in unemployment.
Despite the fact that the situation is gradually improving, the tendency for employers to discriminate against men is becoming more and more noticeable. This applies to both those liable for military service and war veterans.
According to a study by the Confederation of Employers of Ukraine, 79% of managers expressed concern that they would face a difficult psycho-emotional state when hiring veterans. Another quarter are worried that such employees may have alcohol or drug addiction.
For this reason, veterans are currently three times more interested in starting their businesses than ordinary citizens.
At the same time, those who have not been at the front face no less problems in finding employment. In particular, some managers and HR have introduced an informal rule not to hire men. They say they may be mobilized, and the company has no right to fire a mobilized employee.
In particular, this rule is in place in one of the Ukrainian companies associated with the IT sector. They cannot reserve their employees, and it is unprofitable to keep a place for a person who is not currently available. Interestingly, the company's head office is located in Belgium, the capital of which is the heart of the European Union.
Some companies do not even hesitate to talk about this directly. The Business Censor's interlocutor couldn't find a job for two months. He is a biochemist by profession, so he was looking among medical laboratories. At two companies, he was told tacitly that despite his excellent CV and extensive work experience, they could not hire him because "who knows what will happen with the mobilization in a month, and they need people here."
It is worth noting that it is currently impossible to officially employ a man without notifying the military recruitment center. Since January of this year, new registration rules for draftees, persons liable for military service, and reservists have been in force. They stipulate that a draftee must provide a certificate of registration with a military recruitment center, and a person liable for military service or a reservist must provide a military ID card.
After that, the employer must notify the territorial military recruitment center within seven days of hiring a new employee. The latter, in turn, may invite the employee to visit them, if necessary, for example, to update or clarify data.
If a man has not previously served in the army, he must come to the Military Recruitment Centre (MRC) to obtain the necessary military registration document. To do this, he may be required to undergo a military medical examination. Otherwise, a man cannot be hired without documents.
And it turns out that, on the one hand, companies do not want to inform about new employees, and on the other hand, men themselves are afraid to join the official staff.
Not all companies can afford to reserve their employees from mobilization. At the end of January this year, the Cabinet of Ministers approved a new procedure for reserving employees.
Thus, enterprises, institutions and organizations that are critical to the economy and meet at least two or three (depending on the field of activity) of the criteria set out in the procedure will be able to reserve up to 50% of their employees for up to six months.
These include residency in Diia.City, taxes paid more than EUR 1.5 million for the year, foreign currency revenues of more than EUR 32 million for the past year, no unified social tax arrears, and an average salary not lower than the regional average.
What about individual entrepreneurs?
In fact, the only legal way to avoid military registration at enterprises is to be "employed" by a company as an individual entrepreneur.
When registering an individual entrepreneur or cooperating with him, military registration documents are not required. Companies can order and pay for his services. However, in this case, the employee remains unprotected by labor law, and the state does not receive taxes for the employee.
By the way, back in the summer, the Ministry of Economy announced that it was discussing how to make individual entrepreneurs and gig specialists in the IT industry available for mobilization. However, it has recently become known that the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff of the Armed Forces do not support this step. According to the law, only officially employed workers are subject to reservation. Currently, the Ministry of Economy has appealed to the Ministry of Justice "for a legal assessment of the possibility of applying the provisions of this law to individual entrepreneurs".
The failure to reserve employees and individual entrepreneurs is affecting significantly the domestic IT industry. For example, GlobalLogic, one of the largest companies in Ukraine, has 100 employees, while the rest are registered as individual entrepreneurs. The company currently has about 6,500 specialists. Only 10 are reserved.
According to GlobalLogic, the ability to reserve employees directly affects the clients' confidence in the absence of risks. For the client not to worry about cooperation, all key people in the team must be reserved, and key people are about half of the entire team.
What's next?
Currently, the Verkhovna Rada is preparing a draft law that will change the process of mobilisation and demobilization of the military. The document may be adopted, at least in the first reading, by the end of the year.
In particular, the draft law plans to limit the duration of service during martial law to a specific period. So far, options of 18 and 36 months are being considered.
At the same time, the Verkhovna Rada plans to more actively involve representatives of regional military administrations and the National Police in the mobilization process. In particular, in the issue of serving draft notices.
At the same time, local authorities and businesses will have to monitor a person's attendance at a military recruitment center.
The draft law has not yet been registered in parliament. However, it is clear that the issues of facilitating the demobilization process and strengthening mobilisation measures are inevitable. Therefore, it can be assumed that the situation with discrimination against veterans and men liable for military service when looking for a job will only get worse.
