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How migration affected the Lviv region
Over 2,6 million people left through six border crossing points in the Lviv region from February 24 to June 26 this year, 1.6 million people returned, says Stepan Kuybida, director of the economic policy department of the Lviv Regional Government Office.
«Lviv region has become a kind of centre that has received a large number of internally displaced persons. On peak days, 250 thousand to 300 thousand people were accommodated in our social and administrative infrastructure facilities. I think this number can be safely multiplied by two, since we definitely could not account for what is happening in the private sector. In other words, Lviv region experienced demographic changes a little differently than the state,» – he says.
First Deputy Mayor of Lviv, Andrii Moskalenko, drew attention to the fact that, according to big data from mobile operators, up to 5 million Ukrainian citizens have passed through Lviv since the beginning of the full-scale war, almost 2 million of them stayed in our city for a day, a week or two, or longer.
«Today, of course, this indicator has decreased. There are about 100 thousand Ukrainians from other cities living here, some of them actually used the official opportunity to register,» – Andrii Moskalenko claims.
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He emphasizes that now, it’s possible to observe migration processes when Ukrainians who moved since the beginning of the full-scale war are actively returning from Lviv to Kyiv, Zhytomyr, and Vinnytsia. The tendency of Lviv residents to return to the city is also recorded.
According to Anastasia Frolova, the regional manager of SoftServe in Ukraine and head of the company’s Lviv office, we will see a fuller picture in a few months, when half a year has passed since the start of active hostilities in Ukraine, due to which citizens were forced to leave it.
«People must either legalize abroad, or face the risk of tax residency, when it’s necessary to solve this issue in a different way. Most of our employees declare their desire to return from abroad. About a third have already returned. More than half of those who remain intend to return from the point of view of convenience and for patriotic reasons,» – she says.
Anastasia Frolova emphasizes that doubts about the return may arise due to the uneasy situation on the borders with Belarus or Transnistria. The most important issue for people from the IT industry regarding the return to Ukraine is security.
According to the Razumkov Research Center, almost 79% of citizens who left Ukraine prefer to return if it becomes safe here. In addition, they worry about whether there will be anywhere to return to. This was emphasized by Natalia Zaytseva-Chipak, director of the Ukrainian Center for the Study of Public Opinion «Sotsioinform»:
«People are worried about whether they will have a job here and a decent salary. We can say that Lviv is experiencing a lack of personnel, but do smaller cities feel it? In Lviv, the salary level is quite competitive, but is it the same in smaller cities of the same Lviv region, where now there are many internally displaced? If we talk about all refugees who went to Europe, then 79% of them want to return, in particular, 50% from Poland.»
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Director of the Lviv Regional Employment Center, Vasyl Baryliuk, is sure that Ukrainians will return from abroad at least because of the need to find and pay for housing there and find employment.
How to attract people back to Ukraine
The longer a person lives in a new environment, the faster he adapts and the less he wants to return home. Natalia Zaitseva-Chipak focuses on this problem: «If we do not ensure a situation of relative security from autumn, then the children will go to schools abroad. Let’s imagine: the children who studied there for a year and a half already have friends, their parents have found work, somehow organized housing for themselves... Does it make sense to return to a country where the economy is in a dilapidated state and not know if you will find a job here? That is, our task is not just to win, but to do it as soon as possible. This is very important, because it depends on whether these people will return or not.»
According to the expert, the issue of returning people from abroad is urgent, because the war continues not only at the front: everyone works for victory.
«There are a lot of women and children who left Lviv, which is relatively safe. And the men stayed here, earn money and support their families there, that is, we have an outflow of funds from the country. If they spend money here, they support our economy, and save jobs. Probably, we should appeal to this: to ask that people take into account the degree of risk and benefit for one’s homeland,» – she says.
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According to her, this issue is also important in view of Ukraine’s foreign debt: «When there are 40 million of us, each person has a certain share. Imagine that 20% of the country’s citizens left, and this debt grows many times over for those who remained. And the working-age population is leaving, and children are the future workforce.»
The expert also emphasizes that stronger, more active citizens who know foreign languages and have an entrepreneurial spirit adapt better in Europe. It’s precisely such people that Ukraine needs and will need even more during reconstruction. So, we have to do everything possible to return them.
The role of business
Stepan Kuybida says that the role of business is important in the functioning of the military economy and in the future reconstruction of the country. «The state’s proactive policy should be aimed at making businesses feel comfortable. There are actually many planes here, starting with such banal things as control. The state should maintain such a policy as it does now: we do not go to business, we do not «nightmare» it, we do not arrange any inspections.»
Another important factor, he believes, is the tax policy: «Our rules of the game change too often. Business likes when there is predictability and stability.»
The deputy mayor of Lviv, Andrii Moskalenko, believes that today, entrepreneurs are doing unbelievable things, supporting the economy of the city and the state:
«Many entrepreneurs do incredible things. For example, regarding the payment of taxes to the city’s general fund, we fix 107.4% in accordance with the plan. We are talking about the general fund. But we still have a development budget, and it’s clear that it is executed worse because it’s filled from the sale of land plots and property. These few months were not the best time. Although three sufficiently large companies are ready to buy land plots for production. At the city council session, the proposal to put these plots up for auction was supported.»
Andrii Moskalenko also said that the city adopted the program «7 actions of economic progress of Lviv within the limits of martial law», where discussions began on each of the blocks, which has long-term plans for supporting services and technologies.
«We decided to take some quick steps, including additional vouchers to compensate the businesses that were operating here and had large utility expenses,» – he announced.
Employment and war
Vasyl Baryliuk, director of the Lviv Regional Employment Center, claims that the number of people looking for work is now half as low as last year:
«There was a question of acceptable work. For example, a person has registered with us for a month, and we are seeking a job for him according to his diploma and qualifications. If there is none, we offer an acceptable one, with wages not lower than the minimum. And so, we deregister 100-150 people daily. Why do people quit their jobs? Because there are «soft» decisions: not to carry out inspections, after which many people end up in the shadow sector. And we understand this very well. When they are registered with us, we start calling them once or twice a week, but they cannot come because they are working. In Chervonohrad, there were 700 people who received assistance, now there are 143.
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Oleksandr Morhoyev, marketing director of the «Kumpel Group» restaurant chain and Celentano pizzerias, says there is currently a shortage of representatives of many professions. This is connected with the mobilization and departure of people abroad.
«There is a lack of cooks and waiters. It’s also necessary to understand that people are drafted into the army. There are establishments in which, relatively speaking, out of a shift of five waiters, four received a summons and left for a military unit. Previously, we could fill these vacancies with boys and girls, but the girls are now abroad. Of course, they are coming back little by little, but it’s a low dynamic.»
Stepan Kuybida acknowledges the problem of insufficient activity regarding the employment of internally displaced persons, but explains that there are completely objective reasons for this. The main one is that 65% of them are women with children.
«We are working on the resettlement system. The most important thing is the supporting infrastructure. It’s about satisfying basic needs: kindergarten, school, hospital, etc. So we are focusing on this, we are working to, in addition to modular towns as a situational solution, re-adapt the social and administrative infrastructure to the needs of refugees. Simply put, the unfinished school was converted and became a shelter. Vocational and technical schools have many abandoned dormitories, so they can also be a place to live. Then it will be possible to talk about increasing the business activity of these people, inviting them to production.»
Natalia Zaitseva-Chipak emphasizes that refugees are a very serious resource that is important to retain:
«These people live here, even if they are currently on benefits or social payments, but they spend these funds here, in our region, and provide jobs for those who want to work. Many people came here from the frontline areas where the fighting is going on. These are the Luhansk region, Donetsk region, Mykolaiv region, i.e. areas where large factories worked. There, many people had jobs similar to what they once had in the Soviet Union: went to it in shifts. They do not have models of entrepreneurial behavior. The fact that there are credit lines is not an indicator for them. If there are such centres that could show them that there is a business with such a return, it can be built like this, then, I think, it would be easier to attract these people to entrepreneurship. Sooner or later, all this will end, reconstruction will begin, and then the personnel apocalypse will occur: there will be an initiative, but there will be a shortage of working hands and brains. Who should do all this?»
Housing
The primary issue for internally displaced persons is housing. According to Oleksandr Morhoyev, there is a shortage of housing in Lviv due to the large number of refugees.
The deputy mayor of Lviv said that they are preparing to open a special town for pregnant women (there are currently more than 2,000 of them) who require special conditions.
Now, internally displaced persons live in 80 schools in Lviv, and they will be resettled in dormitories and other premises that are currently being furnished before the beginning of the academic year.
Natalia Zaitseva-Chipak emphasized the need to integrate refugees into communities and resettle people around the city for better adaptation:
«There was such a social experiment when a house with beautiful social zones was created for low-income sections of the population and people were settled there. It ended with the fact that this building was simply destroyed, because a crime-prone area arose around it. Then, the local authorities realized that it was impossible to make a «ghetto». These people should be resettled among local residents, then the adaptation will go well.»
Economy of wartime
Entrepreneur Roman Zafiyovskyi believes that the economy should be put on a war footing:
«This is a tough decision, in many cases it’s unpopular. A banal example: the curfew, which creates quite serious restrictions in many areas for labour productivity. There are productions that require working in two shifts, there are additional, even organizational, financial costs, such as obtaining permits so that workers can move during the same curfew.»
Stepan Kuybida believes that the curfew is a matter of security, it’s a time when the Security Service of Ukraine and other law enforcement agencies work. Therefore, permission to move employees of strategically important enterprises at this time is given if there is an appeal from the enterprise itself.
«The wartime economy is a rather complex subject, more than one economist has analyzed it, and everyone understands what to do. Unfortunately, the government has not given us any specific program of how the economy works during wartime. For the sake of justice, it must be said that the Cabinet of Ministers reacted quite quickly to the problems that arose in business. In the first weeks of the war, there were proposals for tax changes, a lot of technical points were made. But the solutions proposed then do not work now, in real time conditions, so a different approach is needed. If we are talking about entrepreneurs, then there are the rules of the game, we must explain how we see the military economy: do we emphasize the production of dual-use goods, do we completely transfer the economy to the defense industry, or do we distinguish functional types of territories, when one area performs such a function, and another one is like this. I would like the government to explain these things clearly,» – he says.
Natalia Zaytseva-Chipak believes that it’s worthwhile to attract connections with the border states, to create platforms where Western companies could express their interesting requests, and small businesses from our territories could respond to them.
Vasyl Baryliuk announced the opportunities described in the Cabinet of Ministers’ resolution of June 21: «The government will create 20 thousand jobs for entrepreneurs by the end of the year. 150 or 250 thousand hryvnias are added to two clicks in «DIIA» app (to register a private entrepreneur status). To do this, you need to employ one person with you – and this is UAH 150,000 for three years, two people – UAH 250,000. Refunds are made at the expense of tax payments by those persons who were hired.»
Another program is the creation of greenhouse farms. As the head of the employment center says, there will be 75 of them in the Lviv region. And when people are offered for employment, the return will take place through the payment of taxes.
There is also talk about the development of berry growing. According to Vasyl Baryliuk, 150,000 to 400,000 will be given for 10,000 hectares.
«That is, there is something to offer. The question is whether the one to whom we will offer will respond. We have officially registered 275 thousand refugees, more than half a thousand applied for work. We travel to many points, offer work, but we employ 600 internally displaced persons. Moreover, we compensate employers for two months of the minimum salary,» – he assures.
He adds that sectoral support and export opportunities for entrepreneurs now exist.
«For example, the government program «5-7-9», thanks to co-financing of regional programs, in particular the Lviv administration, reaches zero. Therefore, the business has a loan at a zero interest rate. And this is already good, because until recently, it was 20 and 18%. It’s only necessary to determine the system for entrepreneurs, there must be a clear determination of the situation at the front. I think people from abroad will return en masse,» – says the head of the employment centre.
In his opinion, the criteria for participation in the programs are clearly defined: people apply to the Savings Bank, draw up a business plan, after which the Savings Bank provides information about the applicants.
«We meet and talk with them. There is a list of who determines what, so that these people are conscientious about the banking environment, for example, they live in territories not related to other businesses. We will conduct explanatory work in employment centres, among entrepreneurs. The program applies to any type of activity. Therefore, not only those who want to establish a business, but also those who seek to develop it can apply. Only three regions have implemented it: Kharkiv, Poltava and Lviv. We will first try to talk with the entrepreneurial environment, small businesses, so that they can expand, buy this or that equipment and employ refugees,» – Vasyl Baryliuk explains.
In general, experts emphasize: if relative security cannot be achieved in the Lviv region, in the country in general, from autumn, then children will go to schools abroad, parents will find work there and take care of housing. Therefore, it’s important to win as soon as possible in order to return Ukrainians home, invest in the economy and rebuild the country together, as well as create decent conditions for refugees in our region.
Olha Katsan, translated by Vitalii Holich
Photo: Tvoe Misto/Ivan Stanislavskyi
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Lviv Now is an English-language website for Lviv, Ukraine’s «tech-friendly cultural hub.» It is produced by Tvoe Misto («Your City») media-hub, which also hosts regular problem-solving public forums to benefit the city and its people.
