Ukrainian women step up to fill once male-dominated jobs – from truck driving to welding

Elizaveta Bezpyatko has been learning how to drive a truck. Her family trucking business in the Vinnytsia region of Ukraine is no longer operating because her husband and brother, who were running it, have been fighting for their country since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion more than two years ago.

Ms. Bezpyatko, an accountant, never imagined herself as a truck driver. “I didn’t even often drive our car. I was looking after our two daughters, who are nine and four years old, and thought I would be an accountant all of my life,” the 30-year-old said.

Oleksandra Panasiuk, program co-ordinator of Reskilling Ukraine, a Swedish NGO, where Ms. Bezpyatko is one of the participants, says the logistics and building sectors in Ukraine are struggling because so many men who used to work as drivers are now in the military.

“According to employers, only men over 60 years old or under 25, or women, are applying to fill their vacancies,” Ms. Panasiuk said, adding that many of the men who used to fill such jobs are staying home or steering clear of public places in order to avoid being handed a draft notice on the street.

According to the State Employment Service of Ukraine, employers are having difficulties filling jobs in traditionally male-dominated professions; in particular, builders, welders, electricians and drivers are in great demand.

Reskilling Ukraine has established a program to teach 350 women from across the country how to drive trucks and buses. And that still doesn’t meet the demand. “We said no to each third woman who wanted to participate because we basically don’t have enough places for them,” Ms. Panasiuk said.

Ms. Bezpyatko says it’s not easy to drive a truck because a large vehicle is harder to manoeuvre and requires a much longer distance to bring to a stop. But she wants to help her husband’s business survive until he comes back from the army.

“Our three trucks are staying in our yard. We need to tell our clients that we can’t work with them any more because we don’t have drivers, but I want to change that.”

She says that in Ukrainian society it’s not typical to see women as bus or truck drivers. Even her husband smiled when she told him about her decision to get behind the wheel.

She said many of the other students in her driving course also have connections to the war. Their relatives are at the front, some have been killed, and their families want to continue their work. Others are internally displaced persons or just want to help deliver humanitarian aid to the front line.

Millions of Ukrainians will need retraining over the next few years – a situation that is changing very quickly, says Ivan Prymachenko, the head of Prometheus, an online courses platform.

Mr. Prymachenko says the labour shortage is affecting large and small businesses, as well as army units, the government, public organizations and donors. “There is a shortage of drivers and cashiers, accountants and sales managers, cooks and managers, grant program managers and civil servants.”

And women are no longer looking at such employment as “man jobs.”

Olena Yerokhina is a military chaplain. Since 2017 she has been visiting military positions to talk with soldiers and try to assist them. Ms. Yerokhina is originally from Avdiivka, a city in the southeastern Donbas region that has fallen and is now under Russian occupation, but moved to Kharkiv at the end of March, 2022, with her four children when Avdiivka became too dangerous.

Her main job is as a pharmacy auditor, but she wears a military uniform on the weekend and travels to the front. She says it doesn’t matter to soldiers that she is a woman. “They trust me and want to talk about the most intimate things. Mostly about their families, because for them, it’s really important to understand that at home they have relatives waiting for them.”

She says she is trying to bring happiness and positive energy to the front. She also says she can’t display her own emotions; otherwise, soldiers would not talk with her.

HR expert Tetiana Paskhkina says employers now prefer women or other candidates less likely to be called up for military service, knowing that recruiters can mobilize their staff at any moment.

“One solution is recruiting women or men before or after military age if the profession and sphere of work allow for it,” Ms. Paskhkina said. “And it’s only the beginning of a big change because, if we don’t have more men, the labour market must react. Vacancies need to be filled, and if there are not enough men, then it will be women.”