THE LABOUR FORCE IN RURAL AREAS OF UKRAINE: PROBLEMS AND INCLUSION OF EMPLOYMENT IN THE LABOUR MARKET

Анотація

This contribution to Chapter II of the monograph analyses the changes that have taken place in the productive base of Ukraine's rural sector between 2015 and 2024, specifically: it provides a description of the dynamics and structure of the rural population and labor force, entrepreneurial activity and employment, trends in fixed assets and capital investment in the key sector of the rural economyprimary productionas well as in the processing sector of the agro-industrial complex.The analysis mainly concerns agriculture, forestry and fisheries, but a complete picture of the labor force in rural areas is provided only by the national survey conducted in 2021.The main reasons for the decline in the number of wage earners and their transition into the group of pensioners or the employed population are revealed, acting as a 'buffer' to mitigate rural unemployment. The development of rural areas in the pre-war periodand shifts in labor force employment The development of rural areas is based on the productive base located within the administrative boundaries of the communities.For the vast majority of rural communities, a significant proportion of settlement communities, and to some extent urban communities, the territory allocated to them serves as the primary means of productionor, more precisely, the part of it used for agriculture.Given that communities comprise a number of settlements, and often as many as two or three dozen, the productive base includes several different types of agricultural holdings.Since, prior to the outbreak of full-scale warthat is, in 2021the statistical data and results of various surveys were published with due regard to their reliability, laterin 2022 and subsequent years, due to the occupation of parts of Ukraine's territory, they were published with significant caveats and were very incomplete, 'truncated' or not carried out at all.Therefore, for our further research, we will utilise the existing statistical database and, where possible, supplement it with the results of new sample surveys in territories under Ukraine's jurisdiction.It should be noted that the existing productive base of rural areas is extremely diverse.At the same time, in accordance with the new Law of Ukraine "On the Procedure for Resolving Certain Issues of the Administrative-Territorial Structure of Ukraine" (No. 3285-IX of 28 July 2023, which came into force on 26 January 2024), these include both rural and settlement localities [1, Art. 1, para.6] and, accordingly, territorial communities.Thus, for the vast majority of rural and settlement communities, the productive base includes labor and land resources, means of production of industrial manufacture and biological origin (reproduction), farm buildings and engineering networks, internal farm roads and land improvement systems, etc.For a more comprehensive understanding of the essence of a rural area, it should be noted that it comprises three key components: the spatial basis of production, the natural environment and the human habitat.Their continuous renewal will contribute to the rational use of rural resources, raising standards and improving the quality of life of the rural population.For the purposes of further research, we will draw on official statistical data (Table 1) [2; 3] and national labor force surveys (Tables 23456) [4].As for rural areas, these were represented by 464 strata (administrative rural districts), whilst urban areas were represented by 49 strata (large and small towns) [4, p. 22].It should be noted that the share of the labor force aged 15 and over in rural areas in 2021 accounted for 31.3% of the total population (5,456,300 and 17,405,000 people respectively) [4, p. 43], whilst the share of the rural population in the total was 30.6% [2, p. 15].Thus, the reliability of statistical data varies across different sources.

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