Ukraine's job market in 2026: 113,000 vacancies, 7 in 10 employers can't find staff — so why is it hard to get hired?

The Ukrainian job market in 2026 is a paradox: there are more vacancies and higher salaries than a year ago, yet almost seven out of ten employers say they cannot find staff, while hundreds of thousands of people are looking for work. Below is what the numbers from Work.ua, robota.ua, the State Statistics Service and the Ministry of Economy actually say, why they contradict each other, and what a job seeker or an employer should do about it.

Key figures of the Ukrainian labor market in 2026

• Salaries in job ads: Work.ua reports that the average salary offered in vacancies rose by 22% in a year — from about 22.5 to about 27.5 thousand UAH. In Kyiv the average offer is around 32.5 thousand UAH.
• Official average salary: the State Statistics Service put the average salary in the country at roughly 30.9 thousand UAH as of May 2026. Official statistics and job-board data use different methods, so they should not be compared one to one.
• Vacancies: at the start of 2026 employers had about 101 thousand open vacancies; by May the number reached roughly 113 thousand. robota.ua recorded 13% more vacancies in the second quarter than in the first, and a median salary of about 28 thousand UAH.
• Forecast: analysts expect the number of vacancies to stabilize at 110–115 thousand in the third quarter, which means salary growth should slow down.
• Vacancies without experience: a record 47% of all Work.ua ads no longer require work experience (36% in December 2023, 43% in 2024).

Why employers complain about a labor shortage when people are unemployed

This is the main question of the year, and the honest answer is that it is not one problem but several.

Estimates of the shortage differ by orders of magnitude. The Ministry of Economy has talked about a shortage of around 4.5 million workers, other experts say about 2 million, while the State Employment Service sees only about 90 thousand vacancies it is asked to fill. The numbers differ because they measure different things: potential demand across the economy, employers' own complaints and registered vacancies.

Most employers feel the shortage. Depending on the survey, 67–70% of businesses say they lack people. At the same time, only about 93 thousand people were officially registered as unemployed at the end of June 2026, and around 7 million Ukrainians are outside the labor market altogether, according to the Ministry of Economy. They are abroad, in the army, caring for relatives, displaced, or have simply stopped searching.

The mismatch is geographic and professional. The shortage is the sharpest in manual and technical trades, logistics and transport, and healthcare. Meanwhile, people with office specialties compete for a limited number of ads. The State Employment Service alone lists almost 7 thousand open positions for drivers across the country.

What the shortage means for job seekers

1. Experience matters less than it did

Almost every second ad on Work.ua now accepts candidates without experience, and the share grows every year. Employers in scarce professions prefer to train a motivated person rather than wait months for an experienced one. If you are changing careers, look first at logistics, retail, production, services and medical support — these are the sectors where the threshold is the lowest.

2. Salaries grow slower than the headlines suggest

A 22% rise in offered salaries sounds impressive, but inflation, a growing share of low-paid mass vacancies and the shift of the average towards Kyiv all affect it. Compare an offer with the median for your profession and city, not with the national average. Our category pages show the current number of open vacancies for each profession, which helps to see where demand is.

3. Remote work is wanted far more than it is offered

Work.ua notes that remote jobs stay extremely popular among job seekers while employers rarely offer them. Competition for each remote vacancy is therefore much higher than for the same job in an office. Use the remote filter, but do not rely on it as the only channel.

4. Reservation from mobilization is a real motivation

In surveys, the possibility of getting a reservation is named among the reasons to change a job by 23% of respondents of RBC-Ukraine, and by 41% of IT specialists in a DOU survey. If it matters to you, check whether the employer is a critical enterprise or has an official procedure, and ask about it openly at the interview.

What the shortage means for employers

• Publish the salary. Candidates compare offers within a category first, so an ad with a clear range is easier to choose than one that hides the pay.
• Lower the experience bar where you can train. The market has already moved: nearly half of vacancies take newcomers.
• Add the exact location. People search "near home", so a vacancy with a map point is found by those who live within reach — this is how TrueExpert shows jobs on the map.
• Answer fast. With over a hundred thousand open vacancies a candidate has plenty of alternatives, so a week of silence risks losing the person.
• Think about groups outside the market. Displaced people, people with disabilities, veterans and workers abroad often need flexible or remote formats; the state plans to continue compensation programs for employers who hire displaced persons and create workplaces for people with disabilities in 2027.

Labor market forecast for the rest of 2026

Analysts expect a plateau: vacancies at 110–115 thousand, slowing salary growth, a continued shortage of workers and a cautious IT sector. The most reliable strategy for both sides is to rely on skills that are in demand in several sectors at once — logistics, customer service, sales, basic technical skills — and to keep documents, resume and contacts up to date.

Frequently asked questions

Is it a good time to look for a job in Ukraine in 2026?

For mass and working professions — yes: there are more than a hundred thousand vacancies and a record share of them accepts beginners. For junior IT and some office roles the competition remains high.

What is the average salary in Ukraine in 2026?

About 30.9 thousand UAH according to official statistics (May 2026) and about 27.5 thousand UAH in job ads on Work.ua; the median in robota.ua vacancies is about 28 thousand UAH. The difference comes from the method of counting.

Where are the highest salaries?

Kyiv traditionally offers the most in job ads. Our separate review of regions and in-demand professions has the details.

Find a job now

Browse open vacancies by profession or on the map: Warehouse & logistics, Retail & trade, Healthcare & pharmacy. All jobs · jobs near me · by category.

Sources

Data compiled from publicly available reports; numbers differ between publishers because of different methods and dates of measurement.

• Work.ua — labor market trends, forecasts and analytics
• TSN — labor market 2026: who is paid the most, what to expect in Q3
• Ekonomichna Pravda — labor market 2026
• Interfax-Ukraine — robota.ua vacancies in Q2 2026
• Glavcom — the labor market paradox
• Gazeta.ua — unemployment statistics and the staff shortage