Many Ukrainians rush abroad in the summers. But not all of them take vacations there — many move to a foreign country to work.
They pick fruit, vegetables, and berries for European farmers — who praise the Ukrainian workforce as skilled, diligent and hardworking. And it is the best way to make a living for millions of Ukrainians.
But such a massive outflow of working hands from Ukraine creates problems too. There are fewer people left to work Ukrainian fields.
Local farmers and the Ukrainian government would like to create an economy that keeps these workers at home, but there’s little chance for that, given that Europe pays far more than the average Ukrainian farm worker can earn at home.
Even during the coronavirus pandemic, which forced many seasonal workers to return home, few local farms managed to provide their compatriots with attractive labor conditions. So when the pandemic is over, many will resume their work abroad.
“Objectively, the Ukrainian government cannot create the kind of jobs that would encourage labor migrants to stay home,” said Vasyl Voskoboynik, head of the Ukrainian Association of Companies in International Recruitment.
Migrant workers can earn more than $1,000 per month in Europe, while Ukraine offers less than $300 a month.
“As long as such a discrepancy exists, labor migrants will go to work abroad,” Voskoboynik said.
In 2019, more than three million Ukrainians were legally working abroad, mainly in Poland, Finland, Germany and the Czech Republic. But the number can swell to 9 million during the harvest season, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Social Policy.
While Ukraine loses labor, it gains financially from workers abroad. In 2019, Ukrainian workers sent home nearly $16 billion in remittances — 10% of the national gross domestic product, according to the World Bank.
Ukraine’s seasonal workers pick apples at an orchard near the Polish village of Leczyszyce. Poland is the most popular destination for Ukrainian migrant labor – over 1.5 million Ukrainians worked in Poland in 2019. (AFP)
Valuable workforce
Europeans value Ukrainian seasonal workers for many reasons. First, they live close by: It takes 1.5 hours to fly from Kyiv to Warsaw and 2.5 hours to Helsinki. Cultures are similar, too.
For employers, it is cheaper to hire Eastern European migrants rather than Asian or African ones. Moreover, Ukrainians can be paid less than locals, while still doing their job effectively, Tetyana Pashkina, an expert on Ukraine’s labor market, says.
Ukrainians often work for the same European farmers every season and, with time, become “almost like family members” for them, said Marko Mäki-Hakola, a business director at the Helsinki-based Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners.
According to Mäki-Hakola, during the coronavirus pandemic, Finland was so interested in getting Ukrainians to work on its farms that it organized charter flights with Ukraine International Airlines to transport Ukrainian seasonal workers.
Meanwhile, Poland — the most popular destination among Ukrainian labor migrants — has simplified the procedure for obtaining work visas to recruit more workers. In April 2020, the number of officially employed Ukrainians in Poland decreased by almost 30% because over 160,000 of them left the country during the quarantine.
The Czech Republic offers at least three types of work visas for Ukrainians to make it easy to enter the country.
Ukraine’s labor migrants usually pick fruit and vegetables or milk cows, vacancies that are often listed as zootechnicians and agronomists, said Lenka Simova, a human resources manager at the Agricultural Association of the Czech Republic.
Ukrainians employed by Czech companies are highly valued for their contribution to the local economy, says Tetyana Okopna, spokesperson for the Embassy of Ukraine in the Czech Republic. In the automotive industry, consumer services, construction, medicine and agriculture, their help is vital, she adds.
High expectations
It’s tough work, nonetheless. Their day usually starts at 4 a. m. and may last for up to 12 hours.
Ukrainian labor migrants who spoke to the Kyiv Post said that, by the end of the day, their bodies are aching and they feel exhausted. And those working for unreliable companies sometimes live in deplorable conditions or receive lower salaries than promised.
“Working abroad is hard, but it is harder to stay home,” said Vitaliy Kravchuk, a labor migrant from the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil who has just returned from a strawberry farm in Norway. “Ukrainians are angry at us. For them, ‘migrant worker’ sounds like a traitor.”
Ukrainians know that Europe needs them. As demand for workers rises, so do their expectations. Only 6% of Ukrainians in Poland are still willing to work for the minimum Polish wage, according to a survey by Studium Europy Wschodniej UW. And the pandemic can worsen the employer-employee relationship, it concludes.
Ukrainians rush abroad in summers to pick fruit, vegetables and berries for European farmers, because it is the best way to make a living for millions of them. However, local farmers are often left with a small workforce. (Kyiv Post)
Endangered harvest
Fearing for their 2020 harvest, European farmers are begging migrant workers to come.
For example, berries can be hard to sell if they’re harvested too late and are overripe, says Tetiana Smirnova, a Ukrainian expert on the fruit and vegetable market.
But while Europeans are sounding the alarm, Ukrainian farmers are struggling too.
Because of the adverse weather conditions in May, farmers lost up to 45% of the expected strawberry harvest, according to Fedir Rybalko, executive director of Ukraine’s Fruit and Vegetable Association. The price of strawberries in Ukraine hit a historic record in June 2020 — $3.5 per kilogram, while it’s usually below $2.
The shortage of seasonal workers affected Ukraine earlier, in March-April. The quarantine restrictions on public transport made it hard for domestic seasonal workers to move inside Ukraine.
Local companies also experienced a labor shortage, but it wasn’t as critical, said Elena Kaijen, head of the Ukrainian Berry Association. And despite the pandemic, Ukraine managed to increase the export of frozen berries to the European Union by 20% this year, exporting mainly to Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic.
Many Ukrainian small farmers told the Kyiv Post that they have not been impacted by the lack of workers or the pandemic.
And yet many criticize Ukrainian labor migrants. “People go abroad only to make money,” said Mykola Stryzhak, president of the Ukrainian Association of Farmers.
Stryzhak believes that the government should create better working conditions in Ukraine and develop small family farming so Ukrainians can work “on their own land” and stay together with their families.
“One can always find land in Ukrainian villages,” Stryzhak says.
The migration dilemma
The government endorsed the idea of bringing migrants home when the pandemic started, but the general attitude toward labor migrants remains mostly negative inside the country.
“During the quarantine, local employers had a chance to entice labor migrants — some of them did, others have missed an opportunity,” labor market expert Pashkina said.
Experts said that Ukraine’s economy is not as dependent on remittances from migrant labor as some other former Soviet republics, such as Tajikistan, where 40% of the country’s GDP comes from remittances.
Nevertheless, it seems that, once the quarantine is over, many will go back to working abroad. Some experts believe this will be for the better.
The outflow of workers, including seasonal ones, can reduce the pressure on Ukraine’s employment market and encourage local companies to give higher salaries to those who stay, improving working conditions along the way.
In the end, seasonal work abroad has fewer negative consequences for Ukraine than long-term migration, because people return to the country with new skills, Olha Kupets, an associate professor at the Kyiv School of Economics, says. With enough incentives, they can decide to stay home independently, without unconstitutional restrictions on their movement.
“It is better to give people the ability to choose,” Kupets said.
