The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts the unemployment rate in Ukraine will reach 11.3% in 2027. This is expected to be higher than the unemployment rate for this year.

Recently, the head of the Verkhovna Rada’s Finance Committee, Danylo Hetmantsev, pointed out that at the end of June there were 93,100 officially registered jobless persons. This marks a 2.2% decrease compared to the same period in 2025, and a 1.3% drop from May.

A total of 220,600 people were officially unemployed in the first half of the year, 2.8% less than in the same period a year ago. But experts warn that the drop in registrations doesn’t necessarily correlate with a rise in the number of citizens having jobs.

Discrepancies in Data and Labor Market Shortages

The IMF’s joblessness rates are determined by the “full” approach set out by the International Labour Organization, Hetmantsev said. The latter is in contrast to the domestic statistics generated by the Government of Ukraine, which include only people who have applied for state benefits. Thus, if the number of registered officials has gone down, it doesn’t necessarily reflect a better employment situation.

Meanwhile, there’s a big mismatch of supply and demand in the domestic labor market. The State Employment Service (SES) has 63,200 vacancies in its database as of late June. This amounts to approximately 67 per cent of job vacancies being matched with registered job seekers.

The country’s labour market is structurally weak, despite the statistics of reduction in the number of people who are registered as unemployed. The need for skilled specialists is continuing to be a problem for employers, which, when compared with the overall unemployment rate, is a paradox since estimates from abroad indicate a high level of unemployment.