Foreign labor migrants from the “risk” list: a chance for the Ukrainian economy or big problems for the state
Ukraine has reached a critical point where economic ambitions are fading in the face of harsh demographic realities. It now faces a dangerous choice: either find millions of workers to revive the economy, or admit that the personnel gap has become a matter not only of business but also of national security. Attracting foreign migrants from the so-called “risk” list may seem like a quick fix for factories, construction, and the agricultural sector, but this government decision hides great risks.
The problem is whether the war-weary state can control new migration flows without creating shadow enclaves within the country, an illegal labor market, new pockets of social tension, and the risk of increasing crime. Ukraine needs labor resources, but will it pay for the temporary closure of vacancies by foreigners by losing control over its own future?
Human resources exhausted: how Ukraine approached the critical limit
Work has started in Kyiv on a new migration strategy, the foundation of which is based on quite obvious figures from the Ministry of Economy. To grow GDP at 7% by 2030, the country will be critically short of 4.5 million workers, so the government is considering the possibility of easing restrictions for foreigners from the so-called “risk” list. There is simply no internal resource for such a jump, because the labor market is scorched by war and migration outflow.
However, the main risk is that Ukraine, lacking experience in managing large migration flows, risks turning into an uncontrolled transit corridor to the EU or leaving behind thousands of illegal immigrants who will “dissolve” in the country after the contracts expire. The task facing the developers of the strategy is to find a way to import labor without importing a security crisis and social chaos.
The modern Ukrainian labor market is forced to transform into a space of harsh survival, where chronic personnel shortages are becoming a real strategic challenge for the existence of business. Analysis of the current situation in 2025 was a period of paradoxical combination of high hiring activity and catastrophic narrowing of the resource base.
Despite the fact that 83% of companies initiated the opening of new vacancies, the real success of these efforts was nullified due to the critical shortage of qualifications, which is openly declared by 74% of employers. Trying to maintain available human capital, business was forced to massively revise financial conditions, which led to an increase in wages in 96% of organizations, but even such measures are not able to fully compensate for the lack of people as a physical resource.
The reasons for this depletion lie in the plane of demographic faults and migration processes, which have most painfully hit the foundation of future development. The departure of young people aged 18–22 has become a significant destabilizing factor for 46% of the surveyed companies, effectively depriving the market of development. The crisis is particularly acute in the manufacturing sector, where closing technical and labor vacancies has turned into a quest with a low probability of success. At the same time, there is a personnel vacuum among narrow-profile specialists with English language skills, sales managers and middle-level management, which creates a gap in the chains of management and sales of products.
Statistical data from state institutions only confirm the pessimistic forecasts of practitioners, outlining the large-scale problem of official employment. According to the Pension Fund, in the first 7 months of this year alone, the number of insured persons decreased by 860 thousand compared to the previous period, leaving the total number of employed persons at about 10 million.
This regression occurs against the background of mobilization processes and difficulties with personnel reservation, which, together with the inflated financial expectations of candidates and abnormal staff turnover, forms a “perfect storm” in the market. In the long term, the Ministry of Economy estimates the post-war need for labor from an optimistic deficit of 4.5 million to a pessimistic one of 10 million people.
Recruitment of foreign migrants: risks for Ukraine
Attempts to solve the problem by attracting foreign workers, especially in the construction, agricultural production or service sectors, contain a hidden risk between immediate benefit and long-term stability of the state. Although the import of labor resources seems to be the most obvious tool for quickly patching up “holes” in production cycles, such a strategy inevitably faces issues of preserving national identity and social integrity.
Moreover, dependence on an external resource can become a trap that only postpones the need for fundamental changes in domestic demographic and educational policies, leaving open the question of whether Ukraine will be able to restore its own labor sovereignty in the coming decade.
The current model of attracting foreign labor to Ukraine demonstrates a deep gap between the declared mechanisms and their practical implementation. The formally defined procedure, which involves obtaining a visa, concluding a contract and further legalization, in practice encounters a multi-level system of administrative filters. The most tangible barrier is the list of 70 countries of migration risk, which includes key regions for the domestic labor market – India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria. The “risk” status leads to the fact that most applicants are refused visa support without providing a reasoned explanation, and logistical difficulties and the need to transit through third countries create an additional financial burden on employers.
In addition, the lack of coordination between government agencies leads to the fact that candidate checks are carried out sequentially, rather than in parallel, significantly extending the implementation time of recruitment projects. For Ukrainian businesses, this creates a situation of high financial uncertainty, when, subject to full payment of all state duties and fees for each person, the actual share of those who reach the place of work is only 10-20% of the planned number. Under such circumstances, attracting foreign personnel loses its commercial profitability, turning into a process with unpredictable results.
The legislative instrument to resolve this crisis should be Bill No. 14211, aimed at digitalizing and optimizing migration procedures. The project provides for the implementation of a single state web portal, which will allow transferring all stages of candidate verification to the digital plane even before their entry into Ukraine. The key advantage of this initiative is the replacement of disparate bureaucratic stages with a single procedure for obtaining a permit, which simultaneously grants the right to reside and work. This approach minimizes the influence of the subjective factor and provides businesses with guarantees that a person who has passed preliminary verification will be able to begin performing their duties without hindrance.
The effectiveness of attracting foreigners is confirmed by the experience of the Fillin company, which integrated more than 20 Colombian citizens into production processes. The visa-free regime with this country allowed testing the full cycle of hiring and adaptation without excessive regulatory restrictions. The results indicate high motivation and ability of foreign workers to quickly master work algorithms in Ukrainian teams. At the same time, further expansion of the geography of hiring to African and Asian countries will require businesses to invest in specialized adaptation programs, since significant religious and social differences will require more complex management of cultural interaction.
At the same time, it is worth understanding that the mass influx of migrants from regions where there are radically different religious and cultural traditions lays the foundation for the formation of closed ethnic enclaves. In such centers, instead of national norms, their own rules of coexistence and specific values begin to prevail, which can lead to deep social isolation. Over time, such areas turn into zones of tension, where, in the absence of proper state control and effective integration programs, shadow structures, illegal markets, and even centers of radicalism and extremism flourish.
For Ukraine, whose security system is currently significantly weakened by the war, such a scenario poses a particular danger. The growth in the number of foreigners, especially those from poor countries, inevitably entails the risks of criminalization of society. In large European megacities, this has already resulted in a steady trend of drug trafficking and petty crime spreading precisely among migrants. If Ukraine does not introduce strict control mechanisms and a strict migration policy, its law enforcement system, which is already working under excessive load, may not be able to cope with a new wave of internal destabilization.
When closed communities with radically different worldviews that reject the established Ukrainian norms of coexistence begin to emerge within the country, this inevitably lays a time mine in the foundation of social peace. Such differences not only give rise to everyday conflicts, but also create a real threat that Ukrainian culture will gradually find itself on the periphery of its own home, becoming something secondary or “exotic” against the background of new cultural layers.
It is important to understand that the desire to preserve the integrity of the national code has nothing to do with hostile isolation or rejection of the principles of humanity and tolerance. On the contrary, it is the natural and sacred right of the people to remain the masters of their own destiny within their own borders. It is about protecting the living source of traditions and values that make us unique, and preventing the state from turning into a space of cultural chaos. Uncontrolled migration, which does not involve respect for the local system, can blur the face of the country, so preserving national self-determination is a form of responsibility to past and future generations who fought for Ukraine’s right to be itself.
Migration strategies of other countries: consequences for societies
Attempts by states to solve internal economic problems by massively attracting foreign labor have formed an extremely controversial chronicle, where the facade of rapid growth often hides the erosion of social foundations. Practice proves that filling vacancies in sectors that are ignored by local residents creates only the illusion of stability, since the price of social degradation and cultural alienation over time outweighs any tax revenues.
The German experience of post-war reconstruction has become a classic illustration of how the rational at first glance concept of “guest workers” has transformed into a protracted identity crisis. The invitation of thousands of workers from Turkey and the Balkan region was planned as a temporary infusion of labor resources, but the “guests” remained forever, forming closed enclaves where the language and laws of the host country remain alien. Today’s realities of Germany, recorded in law enforcement reports, demonstrate the emergence of parallel worlds within megacities, where children of migrants, having formal citizenship, remain mentally disconnected from German society.
The model of integration of foreign labor migrants in France through generous funding of social programs has led to even more radical fractures, turning the suburbs of large cities into zones of chronic tension. Despite decades of attempts to assimilate immigrants from the Maghreb and Africa, ghettoization has only deepened, and the alienation of younger generations has resulted in large-scale destructive protests, similar to the events of 2005. The recognition by the leaders of France, Germany and Great Britain of the complete collapse of multiculturalism has become the final chord in an attempt to build harmonious coexistence through the mechanical mixing of incompatible cultural paradigms.
The British path to Brexit was largely due to the dissatisfaction of the local population with the uncontrolled influx of personnel from Eastern Europe and former colonies, which undermined the position of the local worker. Even the traditionally calm Scandinavian countries lost their status as safe havens due to uncontrolled liberalism, which provoked the emergence of criminal gangs and dangerous “exclusion zones”. Denmark, unlike its neighbors, realized the threat in time and switched to strict quotas and legislative fight against ethnic isolation, trying to preserve the integrity of its community.
Against this background, Japan looks like a unique example of conservative wisdom, as it consciously refused mass immigration in favor of technological sovereignty and automation. The Japanese strategy is based on the belief that preserving ethnic homogeneity and internal unity is more important than filling the labor market with cheap foreign resources that can blur the national face. Despite demographic aging, the country is investing in robotics, proving that modernization is a more effective tool for survival than dubious social experiments.
Even the sophisticated points-based selection systems used in Canada, Australia, or Singapore do not guarantee painless adaptation and economic efficiency. Canadian practice shows the deep frustration of highly qualified foreigners who, due to the non-recognition of diplomas, are forced to perform low-skilled work, becoming a financial burden on the social security system. In Australia and Hong Kong, the use of points criteria often masks the creation of a secondary labor market with limited rights, which stimulates the shadow economy and the exploitation of newcomers.
European internal market protection mechanisms, such as mandatory tests for the presence of local applicants, often become a formality, especially in the agricultural regions of Italy and Spain. The uncontrolled use of seasonal workers in these countries has led to the growth of corruption and the criminalization of entire industries, where cheap labor has become more important than the legal order. Summarizing world experience, it becomes obvious that the strategy of “patching” a demographic hole through mass resettlement is always accompanied by a loss of control over the social fabric of the state.
For Ukraine, these international lessons should become the foundation for the formation of a sovereign demographic policy, free from the illusions of multiculturalism. Instead of risky attempts to integrate foreign communities, the state should focus all resources on the return of its own citizens, creating decent working conditions and stimulating the birth rate. Investments in professional retraining of Ukrainians, support for young families and deep automation of industry are the only way to preserve national identity and sustainable development without repeating the tragic mistakes of other countries.
