Executive Director of the Technological Forces of Ukraine, Kateryna Mykhalko, believes that due to the outflow of people abroad, Ukraine is losing its innovative potential and worsening the personnel market for defense companies.
Executive Director of the Technological Forces of Ukraine, Kateryna Mykhalko, believes that due to the outflow of people abroad, Ukraine is losing its innovative potential and worsening the personnel market for defense companies.
«Now, departure has been opened for young people aged 18-22. This, of course, worsens the personnel market for defense companies. We would like 18-22-year-olds to be able to book and employ them in the defense industry,» she said in an interview with DOU.
According to her, everyone is hunting for engineers and hardware developers the most. «There is ongoing competition for them, as the industry has grown significantly, everyone has hired everyone. Many people are at the front, many have left. The situation with personnel in Ukraine is quite critical,» Mykhalko said.
She believes that it makes sense to take several steps here. First, allow 18-22-year-olds to be booked. «Currently, companies can only book people of draft age. Instead, if 18-22-year-olds had the option to be booked in Ukraine, they would stay and work here, go to the defense industry or other areas, and Ukraine would maintain its human resources potential. Currently, young people leave Ukraine before they reach draft age, without having the opportunity to be booked. Such a step would help reduce the outflow of personnel,» notes Kateryna.
Secondly, invest in students, train them in drone specialties. «This is already happening. Many companies are proactively cultivating their staff at universities,» she states.
Currently, according to Mykhailko, hundreds of thousands of people are employed in the defense industry, including the state sector. «Only in the Ukrainian SSR there are more than 80 companies of various sizes. There are companies that have thousands of people, there are those that have 500 employees. If these are large state concerns, they have tens of thousands of employees. That is, this is such a significant percentage of the population of Ukraine,» she noted.
