UKRAINIAN LABOR MIGRATION: MAIN TRENDS AND RISKS

Abstract

International migration, in particular, labor migration, is one of the defining features of today’s globalized world. According to the UN Special Commission on Migration, Ukraine is among the Top 10 largest countries-suppliers of labor migrants to other countries in the world. The objective of the article is to analyze the current state of external labor migration from Ukraine, to identify its main trends and the risks caused by the escalation and activation of migration processes. An analysis of the available sources, which contain data on contemporary Ukrainian labor migration, provides the following quantitative characteristics: the total number of migrant workers is around 5.9 million; 3.2 million Ukrainians work permanently abroad, 7-9 million work temporarily; from 2002 to 2017, 6.3 million people left Ukraine and did not come back; more than 2/3 of migrants (70.4%) are men; the level of education of migrant workers is mostly secondary (64%). Among the main trends of current labor migration from Ukraine are the following: the rapid increase in the labor migration of Ukrainians to the EU countries caused by the increased opportunities for moving after the introduction of the visa-free regime and the increased loyalty of the governments of the EU Member States to the Ukrainian labor migration; an increase in the number of migrants with higher education, highly qualified specialists, as well as young people, a significant percentage of whom stays for permanent residence; the annual increase in the funds transfers of labor migrants, which makes Ukraine the largest recipient of international transfers in the Europe and Central Asia region. As a result of the study, we concluded that the impact of labor migration on the development of Ukraine is ambivalent. Moreover, in the short term, it can be characterized as mostly positive, though, the long-term consequences of labor migration carry serious risks for the demographic, socio-economic and socio-cultural development of the country. First of all, there is a risk of loss of skilled labor, including human, scientific and intellectual potential, provided that temporary labor migration leads to emigration and change of permanent residence. In order to minimize the negative effects of migration, it is necessary to build a competitive economy through the implementation of real economic reforms and to formulate an appropriate migration policy, which is based on the maintaining and improving the characteristics of labour potential in the national labor market.