The staff shortage has made recruiting profitable. According to a study by Forbes Ukraine, the leaders of Work.ua and Robota.ua have intensified the fight for employers' money and candidates' attention: from high-profile PR campaigns to technological updates.
The staff shortage has made recruiting profitable. According to a study by Forbes Ukraine, the leaders of Work.ua and Robota.ua have intensified the fight for employers' money and candidates' attention: from high-profile PR campaigns to technological updates.
According to Forbes Ukraine, the Ukrainian hiring services market exceeds $40 million and may grow by 15-25% in 2025. As of the end of August, Robota.ua had 108,100 active vacancies, Work.ua had 102,800, and OLX Robota was one and a half times behind.
Work.ua is betting on scale and publicity. After the decisions not to work with businesses that remained in the Russian Federation and the refusal from the gambling segment, the company lost up to 15,000 vacancies and approximately UAH 10 million in revenue, but increased the confidence of candidates. In May 2025, the career festival in the repainted «blue» VDNH gathered 100,000+ visitors and 200 employers. The «Towards» section contains 6,500+ vacancies for veterans. In 15 months, the site received 143.2 million visits (Similarweb) against 68.6 million from the competitor, marketing provides 7-10% of revenue, a quarter of the 200+ employees work on the product.
Robota.ua is «playing the long game» with HR teams and technologies. After the arrival of CEO Valeriy Reshetnyak in 2023, the company is more actively investing in tools for employers: a separate application and AI-based job description generation were launched earlier than the competitor. Netpeak is responsible for digital promotion (migration after the 2019 rebranding). In parallel, they are building expertise: Budni publishes dozens of analytical studies by cities and categories, the company supports HR Pro Awards and HR Camp (approximately UAH 10 million per year, almost 700 participants) and becomes an «HR friend», not just a platform for placement. From a UX point of view, Robota.ua is more convenient from a phone, has more automation (mailings, auto-search, recommendations), while Work.ua takes the simplicity and speed of basic scenarios.
According to market estimates, Work.ua earns ~40% more and keeps higher prices, explaining this by investments in the product and branding, Robota.ua is preparing to equalize tariffs. Therefore, businesses use several platforms at the same time. Mass vacancies and «blue collar» are more often closed on Work.ua, office and middle-level specialists — on Robota.ua.
After a full-scale war, demand shifted across regions, recruitment budgets became more frugal, and competition for candidates became fiercer.
Previously, dev.ua wrote about how Meta is testing an old idea again — posting job vacancies on Facebook. The feature, which the social network first launched in 2017 but closed less than five years later, is returning in a new format.
