Ukraine will annually need 300,000 migrants, warns demographer

Ukrainian immigrants in Krakow. Photo: Getty Images

Ella Libanova, the Director of the Institute of Demography and Social Studies named after M. V. Ptukha at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, stated in an interview with Forbes that Ukraine is rapidly losing its population and will be forced to accept hundreds of thousands of immigrants annually to sustain its economy.

"We cannot do without immigrants. We will lack construction workers. We will have to invest in labor from abroad. The population needs to be prepared for this. I don't know how a grandmother in a Ukrainian village will perceive a person who looks completely different with a different way of life," says Libanova.

According to her, it is necessary to develop a policy now that "would make immigrants adopt the Ukrainian system of values." Otherwise, "we will face many problems."

"To maintain the population at around 30 million, we need to attract about 300,000 migrants annually. This is a lot. And these will likely not be Poles or Belarusians, but people from the poorest countries," warns the demographer.

She believes that it will be extremely difficult for the government to bring back the millions of Ukrainians who have migrated to Europe.

"Germans provide free education in the German language for our migrants. It is hardly to make them return to Ukraine with knowledge of the German language," she astutely notes. "If we believe the Poles (I am afraid to believe this indicator, but they convince me that it is so), 70% of our migrants are employed."

Libanova believes that Ukraine is currently experiencing "a certain division of society" into groups.

"It's not a split; it doesn't exist. But there is a division of society. If we allow this division to turn into disintegration, it will be a catastrophe," warns the demographer.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that, according to the demographer, even after victory we may end up in a death spiral.

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