Dear viewer,
My name is Markus Pilgrim and I am heading the ILO Office for Central and Eastern Europe.
In this short video I'm going to inform you on what has been the impact of the war against Ukraine
on labour markets in this large eastern European country,
what we, from the ILO have done so far to support Ukraine,
and what else is needed in the forthcoming months.
The war launched by the Russian Federation against Ukraine has caused
enormous losses of income and employment.
A recent ILO study estimates that 5 million jobs have been lost,
this equals to a 30% reduction of national employment when compared to prewar levels.
And I am afraid we are going to see further losses of employment
as the war is entering its fifth month.
What have we been doing to assist Ukraine so far?
Our funding partners for our work in Ukraine, including Canada, Czechia, Denmark, the European Union,
Germany and Sweden have been very fast and flexible.
They allowed us to repurpose certain percentages of the funding received without any additional paperwork.
We used this funding for three main emergency interventions.
Shelter for refugees; we provide accommodation and meals to approximately 17,000 refugees
in Ukraine and Moldova per day over a longer period of time.
This support is mainly delivered by local trade unions.
Prevention from human trafficking - we have reached out so far to 300 000 displaced Ukrainians
warning them about the risks of human trafficking and labour exploitation.
And finally, we have trained 300 labour inspectors in Ukraine and Moldova
on psycho-social first aid and other important referral services.
What else is needed in the forthcoming months?
Besides continuing the emergency assistance we propose five main early recovery interventions,
including integration of refugees in labour market and education.
Income support - I'm especially thinking about cash for work programmes for social services
and removal of debris.
Economic stabilisation measures in the safer areas of Ukraine, far behind the frontlines.
This would include private sector development for economic sectors
that can quickly create new and good jobs.
Support for the ambitious reform agenda of the Ukrainian government,
to accelerate reforms initiated before the war, such as labour law reform or educational reforms,
and finally support to trade unions and employers who are going through a very difficult situation
because of the drastic decline of revenues from membership dues.
They need financial support to maintain services for workers and enterprises.
For more details please refer to our newly created website, on ILO's support in Ukraine,
which you can find here on the screen.
Thanks for watching and see you in the next video!