Are Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s “turbo” reforms over? After a dramatic and chaotic government reshuffle last week, the future for policy and legislative initiatives is uncertain. Just after the reshuffle took shape, it was announced that a proposed labour reform - a signature initiative by Ukraine’s Ministry of Economic Development - was to be recalled from parliament.
Amid a protest campaign by Ukraine’s trade unions, the Zelensky government had proposed giving employers the opportunity to dismiss workers without declaring a reason, introducing new types of employment contracts and canceling several employer-side social obligations. The reform was supposed to create one million jobs and reduce the time it takes to find a job to two months - fostering economic development, lowering unemployment and fighting informal work at the same time, the government claimed.
But the reasoning behind these calculations was far from clear. While potentially up to 30% of Ukraine’s economically active population are involved in informal labour, the authors of the draft law chose not to predict how far the level of shadow employment would fall if the reform went ahead. Draft Law No. 2708 and its backers assumed that liberalisation, rather than enforcement, would produce the results they wanted. Indeed, Economy Minister Tymofyi Mylovanov stated on several occasions that “competition” would give Ukrainian workers better protection at work than the country’s current Labour Code.
