As the spring slowly comes to an end and the season of fresh fruit, vegetables and berries appears on the horizon, farmers across Europe are facing one common problem – a lack of seasonal workers due to travel restrictions imposed to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Before the coronavirus pandemic forced countries to close their borders, hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from Ukraine, Romania, Moldova and Belarus were planting and picking fruit, vegetables and berries in neighbouring EU countries, where salaries are three to five times higher.
In Finland alone, local farmers need up to 20,000 seasonal workers annually to help with planting and harvesting, and more than half of them used to come from Ukraine.
Although most of the European countries have closed their borders and banned passenger transportation to fight COVID-19, Ukrainian seasonal workers continue to receive working visas and move abroad for jobs that bring them more money than they can earn in Ukraine.
Moreover, despite higher risks of spreading the virus, foreign farmers encourage seasonal workers to get around the ban and governments hurry to ease it because a shortage of migrant workers means huge financial losses both for families and economies.
“Ukrainian workers are popular in Finland because of their skills, knowledge and good reputation,” said Johan Aberg, director of the Helsinki-based Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners.
This year, the Finnish government has allowed only 1,500 foreign seasonal workers to enter the country, but 80% of them are Ukrainians, according to Paivi Maarit Laine, ambassador of the Republic of Finland to Ukraine.
“This gives the impression of how important Ukrainians are compared to people coming from other countries to Finland,” said Laine.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian seasonal workers in Poland seem to be as valuable. According to Maria Piechowska, a Ukraine analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs, the contribution of all Ukrainian labor migrants to Poland’s gross domestic product growth was nearly 11% in previous years.
During the first month of the pandemic, around 175,000 Ukrainian seasonal workers left Poland.
“The coronavirus epidemic stopped this year’s arrival of seasonal workers from Ukraine,” said Piechowska in a comment to Kyiv-based think tank New Europe Center on May 1. “This is a challenge for the Polish economy.”
A massive deficit in seasonal personnel endangers not only the future harvest in many western European countries. It may also significantly decrease Ukraine’s GDP.
For Ukrainian seasonal workers, work in Poland or Finland is often the only option to support their families at home. In 2019, Ukrainians working abroad sent $12 billion to the country – or 8% of Ukraine’s GDP.
However, according to Vasyl Voskobiynyk, the head of Ukrainian Association of Companies in International Recruitment, nearly 300,000 seasonal workers who returned to Ukraine since the beginning of quarantine are only 10-15% of the total number of Ukrainians working in the EU.
And “those who have returned are just waiting for the resumption of international transport connection by buses and trains to go back and make money abroad,” said Voskobiynyk.
He’s afraid, however, that people will start crossing borders illegally and their foreign employers will fail to isolate newly arrived workers for 14 days, an important measure to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Escaping quarantine
Standing in line in front of the Finnish embassy in Kyiv on the morning of May 6, Volodymyr Pylypiv was among many Ukrainian seasonal workers expecting to get a work visa and leave the country, despite the nationwide quarantine.
Pylypiv plans to join his wife, who has been working on a Finnish farm for the past six years, harvesting potatoes and carrots near the city of Oulu.
“Now it is time to plant and they really need people to do it,” said Pylypiv. It will be the second time he has worked in Finland.
Vasyl Boyko stands near Pylypiv and feels “morally exhausted,” as he was supposed to start his job on another Finnish farm more than a month ago on April 1. But he’s “still sitting in Ukraine and waiting.”
Pylypiv and Boyko both ultimately got their visas, but they still have “no idea” how to leave Ukraine and get to their workplaces. They are considering “other ways of getting to Finland.” The plan is to arrive in Belarus by car, then take a bus to the airport in Minsk and fly to the Finnish capital.
“Leaving Ukraine is a catastrophe,” said Boyko.
Since there are no direct flights from Kyiv to Helsinki, Pylypiv calculates that he will have to spend $80 to get to Minsk and additional $112 for the cheapest airline ticket. “It is very expensive and no one will pay for it,” he said. In Finland, Pylypiv earns about 1,500 euros a month.
According to Finnish farmer Stiina Lerkki, who grows early potatoes, onions and carrots, the country really has a huge demand for Ukrainian seasonal workers, especially in the berry industry. Farmers are lacking both types of workers – those who plant and do all the necessary preparations before the berry season starts and those who pick the berries.
Lerkki, who has been employing four workers from Ukraine for many years, says that she likes Ukrainians, as they are “trustworthy and they are here for the work.” Unlike other Finish farmers, she was lucky enough to have all her employees before the borders were closed.
But what she observes is that currently every seasonal employee coming to Finland is required to go through a two-week quarantine in houses equipped with separate kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms. And the farmers are responsible for setting this up.
“We don’t want to risk their or our health,” said Lerkki. “In Finland, we are very responsible about our people and we want to keep everybody safe and we don’t want to take risks that will endanger the whole population.”
Lora Staskeviciene is responsible for hiring seasonal workers – mainly from Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltics – for another Finnish farm, which specializes in growing peas, spinach, beans, raspberries and strawberries.
Workers from Ukraine are very important since they usually comprise 40-50% of the nearly 100 employees needed per season.
“This is a tense situation,” said Staskeviciene. However, in order not to stop the farming process, the owner of the farm decided to hire Finnish workers, as the coronavirus crisis left many locals without their jobs too.
People wait in line next to the Embassy of the Republic of Finland in Ukraine in Kyiv on May 6, 2020. Every year about 14,000 Ukrainians go to Finland to work for local farmers. This year, however, the Finnish government has allowed only 1,500 foreign seasonal workers to enter the country. According to the embassy, 80% of them are Ukrainians. (Oleg Petrasiuk)
Ukraine to ease travel restrictions
At the beginning of the pandemic, Ukraine banned all flights to other countries, except for two charter flights in April – one to Finland and one to the United Kingdom. Now, however, officials are starting to rethink their position.
Recognizing the difficult economic situation for the country, Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, said that the government would start helping seasonal workers to get to other countries, given that Ukraine “cannot offer the most active part of this workforce a European level of wages.”
On May 5, 180 Ukrainian seasonal workers flew to Germany. “They all have contracts, insurance and permission from the Germany’s Federal Employment Agency,” wrote Prystaiko on Twitter. “There is a separate transfer from the airport, plus 14-day observations to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks.”
Previously, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that he was against charter flights for migrant workers. Meanwhile, neighboring Romania has already organized several regular charter flights to Germany to respond to growing demand.
Kuleba opposes the flights because he believes they automatically increase the risk of bringing the coronavirus bacak to Ukraine after the workers spend several months on farms in the EU.
However, recently Prystaiko announced that, together with Finnish colleagues, Ukraine will help its seasonal workers to work abroad. He also added that his office had received requests for workers from Austria, Denmark, Norway and other countries.
At the same time, it will be harder to get Finnish visas, since the only Finnish visa center that accepts documents, including for work permits, was closed in Ukraine in mid-March. Although people were continuing to apply for visas, the Finns couldn’t issue them. Now, as the visa center has reopened, it has to review the accumulated applications first, and only then will it review the new ones.
“That definitely means that, even if we could start tomorrow, we would not be able to give as many permits as last year,” said Finnish ambassador Laine. Now that the Ukrainian government has decided to relax measures for seasonal workers, Laine is “very happy” about it.
“I’m sure that my EU colleagues are happy too,” Laine said.
