'Tinder for the labor market' — How Ukraine is trying to fix a critical shortage
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Since Dmytro Volynets studied mechanical engineering at university over a decade ago, he's worked in retail, call centers, and on a warehouse floor. Unable to join the army due to a spine injury, the 35-year-old has struggled to find a coherent career path related to his studies —
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'Tinder for the labor market' — How Ukraine is trying to fix a critical shortage by Luca Léry Moffat, Dominic Culverwell March 5, 2026 9:56 PM 5 min read KSE ProfTech students attend welding training classes at the KSE ProfTech facility in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 25, 2026. (Oleh Tymoshenko / The Kyiv Independent) Business by Luca Léry Moffat, Dominic Culverwell Since Dmytro Volynets studied mechanical engineering at university over a decade ago, he's worked in retail, call centers, and on a warehouse floor. Unable to join the army due to a spine injury, the 35-year-old has struggled to find a coherent career path related to his studies — even as several industries offering high paying jobs face labour shortages. In large part because of Russia's full-scale invasion, Volynets' story is typical right now in Ukraine — despite possessing some of the highest rates of tertiary education in Europe, the country faces low productivity and a persistent shortage of skilled workers. Construction, transport, energy, and industry reported critical labor shortages in 2024 and 2025, according to Swiss development organization Helveta — driven in part by a war now in its fifth year that has disproportionately absorbed the blue-collar workers that Ukraine needs. Become a member – go ad‑free Hoping to play a small role in plugging that gap, Volynets is now back in school, taking a six-week vocational training course in which he's learning to operate CNC machines — high-precision metal cutting equipment, used across industries including in Ukraine's burgeoning military sector. "I can't protect my country as a soldier, but I can make rockets," he says. Ukraine's skill gap Labour shortages are not new in Ukraine, the population of which shrank year-on-year since the mid-1990s, according to the World Bank. But Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022 caused a precipitous acceleration of this trend — with mobilization and emigration reducing the country's workforce by a whopping quarter, accord...
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