HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT

From Skills to Systemic Change: Enabling the Systemic Transformation of Ukraine’s Labour Market

Helvetas views human capital development as the entry point to the systemic transformation of Ukraine’s labour market. The organization’s approach goes beyond short-term reskilling — it addresses how education, employment, and economic systems interact and evolve together.

In Kharkiv, Poltava, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, and Chernihiv regions, Helvetas implements training, reskilling, and internship programmes tailored to real market demand. Yet the core objective is not only to train individuals — it is to ensure that training systems, qualification frameworks, and employment services can continuously respond to these demands.

Through partnerships with the State Employment Service and the National Qualifications Agency, Helvetas helps institutionalize new models of cooperation between the state, the private sector, and education providers. These models enhance how labour market intelligence is collected, how skill needs are forecast, and how curricula are designed — creating a feedback loop that keeps the workforce aligned with economic transformation.

This systemic logic connects three levels of change:

• People gain skills that are relevant and transferable across sectors;
• Institutions become capable of anticipating demand and offering adaptive reskilling services;
• The system itself evolves — from fragmented, reactive support to an integrated mechanism that drives regional economic recovery.

Human Capital as the Core of Economic Resilience

Human capital is not only about employability — it is the foundation of entrepreneurship and long-term economic recovery. By developing people’s skills, supporting self-employment, and enabling small and medium-sized enterprises to grow, Helvetas strengthens Ukraine’s regional economies from within.

Through training, mentoring, and targeted grants, Helvetas empowers people from war-affected regions, displaced communities, and other vulnerable groups to start or rebuild their own businesses. More than 330 entrepreneurs have already received financial support to restore production, launch new services, and create additional jobs in their communities.

Evidence-Based Transformation: Analytics Driving Labour-Market Reform 

Helvetas applies a systemic, data-driven approach to transforming Ukraine’s labour market. Research and analytics are not separate activities — they form the foundation for shaping public policy, guiding institutional reform, and aligning employment services with real market demand.

Together with the State Employment Service of Ukraine and the Federation of Employers of Ukraine, Helvetas conducts one of the largest annual labour-market assessments in the country — a nationwide survey that systematically analyses both workforce demand and supply. In 2024–2025, data was collected from over 55,000 enterprises and 70,000 registered unemployed persons, providing an unprecedented evidence base on employment trends, skill needs, and business challenges in the recovery economy.

The results help government agencies and social partners adapt employment programmes, retraining models, and qualification frameworks to actual labour-market dynamics. Insights from these studies are already being used to modernize vocational training, forecast future skill shortages, and improve the targeting of support for vulnerable groups.

Beyond macroeconomic trends, Helvetas explores key dimensions of Ukraine’s labour market — including women’s participation, veterans’ reintegration, and jobseekers’ motivation to reskill — identifying structural barriers and promoting inclusive employment solutions.

By combining analytics with institutional capacity-building, Helvetas supports the creation of a labour-market system that is responsive, evidence-based, and resilient — capable of driving Ukraine’s sustainable economic recovery through the development of human capital.