Labor emigration strips Ukraine of UAH 40 bln annually - expert

Valeriy Heyets, Ukrainian economist, Academician of the National Academy of Science (NAS) of Ukraine, and Director of State Organization "Institute for Economics and Forecasting of NAS of Ukraine", says Ukraine has been losing about UAH 40 billion annually since 2015 due to the emigration.

"In general, we lose about UAH 40 billion annually because people traveled to work abroad never returned to Ukraine. These are quite serious figures, which we cannot but take into account," the expert told a roundtable Monday.

Read alsoPoland says Ukrainian workers transfer about $3.84 bln home in 2017A modular research on labor migration carried out by the State Statistics Service claims some 1.303 million people left Ukraine over the past three years (2015-2017), while only 43% of them returned. The greatest number of people leaving the country are those in the age category of 40-49 years old, Heyets said.

"The main reasons for seeking employment abroad is low wages, lack of suitable jobs and unfavorable working conditions in Ukraine," he said.

As UNIAN reported earlier, a total of 65% of Ukrainians do not want to change their country of residence. On the contrary, 27% said they had plans for emigration.