Ukraine’s industrial sector reported a record share of companies struggling to find workers in April, with 68% of surveyed firms citing labor shortages as their primary obstacle to doing business. The figure is the highest since Ukraine’s Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting (IER) began its monthly wartime polling in May 2022, according to its 48th wave of the New Monthly Enterprises Survey (#NRES).JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. The survey, which covers 471 industrial enterprises across 21 of Ukraine’s 27 regions, says 67% of enterprises cited a lack of workforce as a problem in March 2026, compared with nearly 50% in the second half of 2025. The share of enterprises reporting difficulty finding skilled workers edged up from 61.4% to 62.3% in April. Another 35.1% said finding unskilled workers had also become harder. The share of firms planning to expand employment over the next three months collapsed from 16.6% in March to 2.5% in April. The results show a structural problem that has built steadily throughout the war. Sergiy Nikolaychuk, first deputy governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), said in early 2025 that the mismatch between labor supply and demand was caused by mobilization, emigration, and shifts in wartime economic needs. The high number of displaced Ukrainians has exacerbated the issue – 6 million Ukrainians have become refugees abroad, while over 4 million displaced internally from the eastern regions struggle to find work due to skill mismatch as they move westward to Kyiv-controlled areas.