In the presence of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a memorandum was signed between the State Agency of Automobile Roads of Ukraine (Ukravtodor) and market participants on protecting the rights of road workers and creating new jobs.
The memorandum provides for the official employment for all workers of the road industry companies, ensures health insurance for all workers, and fixes the minimum wage for road specialties at the level of 9 thousand 670 hryvnias per month.
“The condition to ensure the minimum wage for all people who build the roads is the right thing to do. As well as health insurance. This will make the construction of roads more attractive to the workers. People will not have to go abroad in search of work,” the Head of State said.
According to Ukravtodor, more than 38,000 road specialists must be involved to implement the ambitious plan to upgrade more than 4,000 km of state roads in 2020. Additional 120,000 jobs will be created in related industries: in the market of design and engineering services, material production and service. Employment in the roadside infrastructure is also expected to increase.
Head of Ukravtodor Oleksandr Kubrakov noted that today the average salary in the road industry is 16-17 thousand hryvnias. “I think this is the right trend, and by the end of the year, even more companies will have crossed that line in terms of their workers' salaries. Then Ukraine will become more competitive than neighboring countries. It will simply not make sense to go to other countries for specialists of these professions,” he emphasized.
Oleksandr Kubrakov also informed that the online project "Roads and Work" will be launched from May 1 informing about current vacancies in the road industry and development opportunities.
The State Tax Service will monitor the implementation of the memorandum on a monthly basis by all participants, especially regarding employment and wages, as well as payment of all taxes, Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Yulia Kovaliv noted.
"With the signing of this memorandum, we hope that we will be able to show new high-paying jobs with reported salary and payment of taxes by companies every month," she said.