Mauro Longobardo took part in the panel “Investing in People: Restoring Ukraine’s Human Capital that was part of EBRD Annual Meeting in London.

The panel was dedicated to exploring ways to rebuild and strengthen Ukraine's human capital. The discussion sought to explore and summarize how multiple stakeholders such as employers, civil society and international partners can engage together to restore Ukraine’s human capital, establishing new skills in line with market needs, boosting productivity and job quality, and ensuring that nobody is left behind.

Participants included Barbara Rambousek, Director, Gender & Economic Inclusion, EBRD, Viacheslav Klymov, Co-owner and co-founder of NOVA Group, Olga Rudneva, Chief Executive Officer, Superhumans Centre and Hlib Vyshlinsky, Executive Director, Centre for Economic Strategy.

The panel was moderated by Alan Rousso, Executive and Team Coach, International Development Consultant.

Commenting on the strategies that ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih employs to address labour shortages, and what challenges need to be done to make this a more tractable process in the future, Mauro Longobardo noted:

“Our plant operates in the vicinity of the frontline. Since the end of 2021 we had an outflow of 9,000 people which was about 30 % of the then staff roster. We closed 2021 with 27 thousand employees, and 9000 of them left. We have 3,000 employees in the army, but 6,000 have left on their own due to a number of factors such as moving to other places in Ukraine, deciding to leave the area which is close to the frontline etc.

We were able to hire back 3,000 people at the same time. But these nine thousand were very experienced people who mastered the very specific professions. So our plant did not lose people homogeneously in different functions, we lost specific professionals either needed by the army or who had skills that are in demand in other countries in Europe.  Hence it is not only about the numbers, but about the skills and the professionalism of the people.

The nature of our business implies working with equipment which requires skill and attention to operate, and the lack of professionals and lack of experience of newcomers increases the risk for those who operates in this environment. So we are working hard and fast on training and retraining the personnel.

From financial point of view, we were paying people even to stay at home. Even when they were idled, we thought that we needed to keep the staff or else we could not be able to gain them back in the future. So it is not only matter of money, as due to the nature of our business we have a huge financial burden because of the war, but nevertheless the number of people who left is rather big.

What are we doing to bring more people in?  We are focussing on a number of categories. First of all, on women.  Even before the war we had 28% of women in our plant. We are talking about up to 9,000 women.  And we started focussing on them specifically for the jobs that were left empty. Last year we hired five hundred women – a half of all our total hire! And we are actually conducting accelerated training programs for them to quicker master the positions than it was before the war.

Our another important direction is working with students. We have 700 students that we have provided financial support since 2020, and we are trying to attract them in order to replace the people that have left the company.

But still for two years now I am trying to find professionals in some specific professions like electricians or locomotive drivers. And it was impossible. It is not a matter of money. It’s just they are not available.

Talking about the policy changes that need to be implemented to fix the existing human capital problem, it is necessary to focus on the students and the children who have left Ukraine. They are most likely to socialize successfully and complete their education abroad. To bring them back from another country, we need to compete with another countries. So a working environment needs to be created in Ukraine that is somehow similar to the one that they will find as soon as they finish the school abroad. So we need programs aimed at retaining and returning  Ukrainians from abroad, particularly youth.

And there are many things that can be done, but of primary importance is to euro-integrate the Ukrainian legislation, particularly to update the Labour Code of Ukraine that exists since 1972 with amendments, but its core principles are from Soviet Union. This does not create the labour environment that students who study in London or in Germany are trying to get. And those people coming from abroad will come with different skills as they are coming from another environment via intercultural exchanges, they will learn new things and contribute to restoration of Ukraine after the war. But we need to understand that we will have to compete for those resources”.

Full recording of the panel is available at the link:  https://www.youtube.com/live/n6O407ROCAc