Ukraine is experiencing an acute shortage of personnel. The shortage of specialists is occurring everywhere - both at the front and in the rear. The enterprises of the military-industrial complex are particularly affected. The specialists you need are either already working, have been mobilized, or have gone abroad.
The war is a problem for the whole country, writes the local publication "Censor". If its context is not clear, many of the fundamental problems are well known to everyone who has tried to deal with production in Bulgaria.
Inadequate education system
The student candidate campaign for 2025 once again illustrates the sad statistics: applicants practically do not apply for engineering and natural sciences - there is no competition for these areas, although the state order has been significantly increased.
"Many people do not reach the level of engineering. This is a highly paid job in good companies, especially in defense. "Critical to Ukraine's victory," commented Roman Grischuk, a member of the parliamentary committee on education.
According to the executive director of the Ukrainian Council of Armsmen, Igor Fedorko, in Kiev alone, one of the large defense companies has over 700 vacant positions. "Where to find so many specialists on the market, I have no idea", he admits.
The acting rector of the Kyiv Aviation Institute, Ksenia Semenova, sees two main reasons why applicants today do not choose engineering specialties: "First of all, physics and mathematics are taught very poorly in schools. Graduates feel insecure in these subjects and are afraid that physics and mathematics will be a big part of higher education. Btoro - the general public does not understand that there is a great demand for engineering professions and that there are big salaries."
Business does not invest in the long term
The technical director of the company-manufacturer of drones DEVIRO Denis Chymachenko believes that in society, since Soviet times, there has been a persistent belief that engineers are poor people whose skills are not needed by anyone in the modern world.
"Companies are often not ready to invest in personnel for the long term and generally plan their work for a maximum of a year, so in conditions of a de facto export ban they are shunned by the state order", explains Semenova.
Other companies note that in recent months There is a growing shortage not only of qualified personnel, but also of unqualified ones. This leads to an increase in wages and an increase in the cost of production for the armed forces.
"ΠBecause of this need, problems arise with the scale of production, and as a result we have insufficient rates of delivery of drones to the army", they explain.
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The main reason is problems with military registration documents for candidates of active age. Since companies cannot officially appoint such people, the search for a motivated candidate is significantly delayed.
Possible options
Many students of technical specialties at Ukrainian universities still work in the defense industry part-time. Up to the age of 25, they are not subject to mobilization.
This is to some extent a solution, but not completely - they have limited time and in some companies it is stated that they need three young people to complete the work that one worker is capable of.
One of the ways to overcome the deficit may be to increase the number of women in the industry. However, there is still a lot to be done to make such a career attractive for them.
Investments in technology are needed
Ksenia Semenova emphasizes that at the moment it is necessary to invest a lot in technology, since everything that can be simply "invented in a garage" has already been invented.
ΠThe problem is that in One technical university in Ukraine does not have a modern scientific research infrastructure for defense research. ΠThe teaching staff has also not been motivated to follow new developments in their fields for years.
"We did not deal with this for a long time. We created a big problem for ourselves. And unfortunately, there is no hurry to solve it", summarizes Professor Vitaly Zaitsev.