By Olha Chepil | 2026-03-27

Every morning, Diloar opens his shops in the pedestrian tunnel beneath Kyiv's central railway station. He sells dried fruit, oils and Eastern sweets. When the air raid sirens go off, he and his family shelter in the metro. He is planning to buy an apartment.

He is from Tajikistan.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion, Diloar returned home briefly. Then he came back, because, as he put it, there are jobs in Kyiv. His family followed. His children are enrolled in school. He now runs three shops and is opening more. He has invited his relatives to join him.

Ukraine may soon need a lot more people like Diloar. Economists warn the country is heading toward a labor crisis that could rival the destruction of the war itself: as many as 5 million workers short, roughly the entire workforce that has fled since 2022.

Millions gone, few returning

Since the full-scale invasion began, around 7.7 million Ukrainians have left, according to UN data. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry puts the figure closer to 8.5 million.

The scale of the loss is stark. Before the war, Ukraine had around 18.5 million working-age people. Now it has around 12.5 million, economist Oleh Pendzin told Kontur. At least 5 million of those who left are of working age.

Pendzin does not expect most of them back. Many, especially women and children, who make up a large share of the refugee population, have overcome language barriers, found stable employment and are leaving temporary protection programs to become full-fledged EU residents.

"In a best-case scenario, around 25% of the working-age people who left will return," Pendzin said.

Even some who stayed to fight may leave after demobilization. Pendzin described a likely scenario: a woman and child already settled abroad, the child in school, the mother working -- and a discharged soldier weighing whether to come home or join them.

"That raises questions for them. Where will the family live? In Ukraine or elsewhere, for example, in Germany?" he said.

The math is unforgiving. Economists estimate rebuilding Ukraine will require around 5 million workers. "We're running into a simple question: where will we get them from?" Pendzin said.

Who will fill the gap

The shortage is already being felt.

In 2024, roughly 75% of Ukrainian businesses reported difficulty finding workers, Vasily Voskoboinik, an employment expert, told Kontur. Before the war, Ukraine issued around 22,000 work permits to foreigners per year. By 2025, that number had fallen to roughly 9,000.

"For a country with a population of about 30 million, that's basically nothing," said Voskoboinik, who heads the All-Ukrainian Association of Companies for International Employment and the Office of Migration Policy.

Getting workers in is its own obstacle course. A would-be migrant needs a Ukrainian work visa, a transit visa through a third country, a flight to Europe and then nearly a full day of travel to reach Ukraine, with no guarantee of entry at the border.

"And even if they have a visa, a border guard could decide not to let them into the country," Voskoboinik said.

His organization is drafting a state migration strategy through 2035 to present to the government. He says Ukraine's security services should determine which countries are safe recruitment sources. His top candidates: the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus -- Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia and possibly Georgia.

"To a great extent this is because the language barrier is a serious problem, but people from those countries understand Russian," Voskoboinik said.

Back in his tunnel shop, Diloar is already doing his own recruiting.

"I sent an invitation to my relatives because there are a lot of jobs here," he said. "I don't want to go back to Tajikistan because I have a job and my family here. I have three stores now, and we're trying to open even more."