After the opening of maritime exports in 2023, the Metinvest mining and metallurgical group started to increase the workload of enterprises and did not reduce staff, director for sustainable development and interaction with personnel Tetiana Petruk said in an interview with dsnews.ua.

"The worst year in the entire history of Metinvest was 2022. After the opening of maritime exports in 2023, we began to increase the workload of enterprises. Therefore, last year we did not make layoffs; on the contrary, since then we have been directing all our efforts to maintaining production teams and increasing efficiency processes. However, the number of personnel decreased by 4,800 people due to the outflow of personnel and mobilization," the director said.

According to her, retraining takes place in almost all blue-collar professions; training for 85% of specialties is carried out directly in production. In 2023 alone, Metinvest retrained and upgraded the skills of 13,000 employees.

Regarding salaries, Petruk said based on regular monitoring of wage market trends and inflation levels, employee incomes are increasing. In 2023, an additional team bonus was introduced for employees of Ukrainian production sites6 and income increased by 15%. At foreign and service enterprises, wages have increased at the level of inflation, and from May 1, 2024, salaries for employees of production and repair enterprises in Ukraine have been increased. Consequently, the average salary of production personnel will increase by almost 30% compared to the pre-war period.

Now Metinvest has started to experience a personnel shortage – there are about 4,000 vacancies. Among the reasons are labor migration, mobilization, as well as the departure of people to safer regions and abroad.

The company started to hire many more women where possible. Thus, the group is trying to free up men for professions that women will not accept. It is obvious that we cannot do without further feminization of male professions; this is our future, the HR director said.

"This year we focused on forming a personnel reserve for key positions in our Ukrainian enterprises, and also completed a review of talent at foreign enterprises. We also summed up the results of the annual assessment, on the basis of which we plan selection for the personnel reserve and a training and development program for employees. We support internal promotion and movement between enterprises, allowing employees to realize their potential. Therefore, it is important for us not only to prepare employees for existing tasks, but also to ensure that they are prepared for future challenges and opportunities within the company," she said.

Metinvest is a vertically integrated group of mining and metallurgical enterprises. The group's enterprises are located mainly in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions.