Impressive Data: Half of Ukrainian Farmers Work Abroad

Recently, a roundtable “Rural and Agrarian Development: Status and Prospects” was held. Within the framework of the event, Tamara Ostashko, Head of the Division of Sectoral Forecasts and Market Conditions of the Institute of Economics and Forecasting of NASU, covered the topic of labor migration in Ukraine. She said that according to some data, 2 out of 5.6 million people from rural areas are migrant workers, writes “Agro-Center”.

“The total population is 42.1 million permanent residents. Of these, rural residents make 31.1%. If we look at the 2018 data, the rural population has decreased by about 16% in the last ten years. The economically active rural population from 15 to 70 years old is 5.6 million people,”

said Tatiana.

According to Tatiana, the employment rate of the rural population in the first quarter of 2019 was 62.2%, and the urban population – 68.2%. According to the scientist, the total number of people employed in agriculture is 2.9 million. The unemployment rate among the rural population of Ukraine is 10.9%, among the urban population – 9%.

“Our colleagues from the department of agrarian transformation gave us the following data. The share of self-employed and free workers among those employed in agriculture is 79.5%. Another striking figure is the volume of labor migration. While according to official data the number of migrant workers is about 7% of the socially active population, unofficial estimates reveal that 2 million people from villages are migrant workers,”

concluded the expert.