Major Ukrainian companies are calling for mass exemptions for their staff from military service, even offering to pay to exempt workers from the draft, as they throttle back production amid a worsening labor shortage, according to a Financial Times news feature.
Pipe maker Interpipe, for example, has more than 1,000 vacancies and still discovers new staff missing every day due to conscription even though it's considered a "strategic enterprise," which means half its staff is exempt from the draft, the newspaper reported.
“Every shop floor manager, supervisor and plant director is like a chess player. He comes to work, finds a new piece is missing from the board. What to do?” Interpipe’s human resources director Vitalii Pakhomov told the FT.
Ukrainian companies have proposed paying a military fee of 20,000 hryvnia ($487) per worker per month to exempt them from conscription, and a bill is currently up for debate in parliament to that effect. Another bill would exempt all Ukrainian men who earn more than 36,500 hryvnia.
“More and more businesses will shut down simply because they don’t have enough resources to keep going,” said Dmytro Natalukha, head of the parliament’s economic affairs committee. “I don’t want to be apocalyptic, but I would say the deadline is late September.”
