Hire in Ukraine

A written employment agreement or contract can be concluded before or on the date that the employer issues a hiring order but it only becomes effective on the date of the hiring order. It must be signed by the employee.

The parties can amend the employment agreement or contract at any time. To make changes to the essential terms of employment (compensation, working hours, etc), the employer must issue an order notifying the employee of the changes at least two months in advance.

The employer must issue an internal hiring order to document the commencement of the employment relationship, stating the employee’s position and salary. The employer must also report all hired employees to the State Fiscal Service.

In addition, the employer must enter the relevant record in an employee’s labor book. The labor book records an employee’s employment activity and must be maintained by the employer for each employee working more than five days.

A salary indexation is applied when the inflation rate reaches above 3%.

The law states the documents that can be requested by an employer from a potential employee for each type of job (e.g. criminal records can be verified for teaching positions). An employer is not allowed to request information such as credit history or bank statements.

If a certain job has specific age or health requirements, the employer is authorized to request confirmation of these requirements from the potential employee.

Military registration with the authorities is required before employment.

The probation period cannot exceed one month for blue-collar employees or three months for other employees. The probationary period can be up to six months for some employees (e.g. state officials).

The duration of the probation period does not include the days when an employee does not work, irrespective of the reasons.

The terms of the probation period must be stated in the employment agreement. During this time, the employer can dismiss a non-performing employee by stating the performance is not satisfactory.

A dismissal notice should be issued three days in advance to an employee on probation. However, an employee is not required to give any notice if he or she resigns during the probation period.

The number of working hours for full-time employees cannot exceed 40 hours per week or eight hours per day in a five-day working week. Employees are entitled to unpaid breaks following four hours of work, which must not last more than two hours.

If a six-day working week is performed, the duration of the working day prior to the weekend cannot exceed five hours.

The general rule is that overtime is not allowed in Ukraine. The Labor Code provides a list of exceptions of when an employee may be required to work overtime.

Employees are not permitted to work for more than four hours of overtime in two consecutive days and 120 hours of overtime in any one-year period.

Overtime must be paid at the rate of 200% of the regular hourly rate of the relevant employee. The law prohibits the compensation of overtime work with only additional vacation or a leave of absence.

In addition to paying overtime wages, employers are required to pay additional wages to employees who are asked to perform duties that have not been specified in the employment agreement.

Certain categories of employees may not be engaged for overtime work, including pregnant women, women with children of up to three years old and persons under 18 years old. Other special categories of employees can perform overtime work only with their consent, including women with children aged three to 14 years or with a disabled child.

Some categories of employees (e.g. executives and employees whose working hours are not possible to fix) may be engaged under variable working hours. There is no concept of overtime for these employees. Employees with variable working hours are entitled to up to seven days of additional paid annual leave.

All Ukrainian nationals are required to have a labor book, which is generally provided by the first employer of an employee. It is then the obligation of future employers to update the employee’s labor book.

Employers are required to keep lists of employees according to military records.

There are no guidelines on the payment of bonuses but it is common to reward employees with contractual or discretionary bonuses.

Parties may terminate employment only in the circumstances listed in the Labor Code.

These include:

• termination upon agreement of the parties
• expiration of a fixed-term agreement
• at the employee’s will (with two weeks’ notice)

Grounds arising from the employer’s initiative include:

• redundancy
• employee’s failure or inability to fulfill employment duties
• insufficient qualifications
• deteriorating health conditions
• disciplinary violations

Ukrainian law prohibits the dismissal of certain categories of employees. This includes pregnant women and women with children under 3 or under 6 for children with medical conditions) as well as single mothers who have disabled children or children under 14.

The statutory minimum notice period in Ukraine is two months if the case involves redundancy. Notification is not required in all cases (e.g. where there has been a single gross violation of employment duties).

Employees can voluntarily terminate an employment agreement by giving two weeks’ notice.

For all types of dismissal, an employer must pay an employee all payments due under the employment agreement (e.g. salary and compensation for any of the employee’s unused annual leave).

If an employee terminates an employment contract due to the employer’s violation of the labor laws or employment agreement, the employee has a right to a severance payment of three months’ average wages.

The employer must pay a severance of one month average wage in the case of redundancy or termination due to unsuitability of skills. For termination of corporate officers, severance is six months’ average wages.

Voluntary severance payments are subject to negotiations between the employer and the employee.

Non-compete clauses are not enforceable in Ukraine.

The parties can only sign fixed-term employment agreements under conditions allowed by the law or if the employer has a reasonable justification for offering temporary employment.

If the employment relationship continues beyond the expiration of the effective term of a fixed-term contract, it will be deemed to be an indefinite employment contract.

Any renewals of a fixed-term employment carry the risk that the temporary character of the employment will be challenged. Similarly, entering into a fixed-term employment contract without justification may result in it being reclassified into an indefinite one.

Employees whose pay is calculated on an annual or monthly basis must be paid at least twice per month. The interval between payments must not exceed 16 days.

The payslip should contain information on vacation days, sick leave, business trips, overtime, work on weekends and holidays.

Employees are entitled to 24 days’ paid annual leave after six continuous months of service with an employer. If employment is under six months, employees can take prorated paid annual leave. Unused annual leave can be carried over to the next year.

For certain professions or industries, persons with disabilities and young employees below 18 years of age, there are longer minimum paid annual holidays (from 28 to 56 calendar days).

Annual leave can be partially replaced by payment in lieu at the request of the employee. This only applies to the part exceeding 24 calendar days.

There are certain categories of employees where employers must grant additional annual leave:

• third category of disabled persons: 26 calendar days
• first or second category of disabled persons: 30 calendar days
• minors: 31 calendar days
• educators: 56 calendar days

Employees with irregular working hours are to be provided with additional annual leave of up to seven calendar days per year.

The total number of days of annual vacation (both basic and additional) cannot exceed 59 calendar days.

The first five days of each period of an employee’s sickness is paid for by the employer and thereafter the compensation is covered by the Ukrainian State Social Security Fund.

The employee must submit a medical certificate only after his or her recovery. The sick leave allowance ranges from between 50% to 100% of an employee’s average salary, depending on the length of their employment insurance record as follows:

• Up to three years: 50% of the average daily earnings
• Three to five years: 60% of the average daily earnings
• Five to eight years: 70% of the average daily earnings
• More than eight years: 100% of the average daily earnings

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, new provisions have been introduced to allow sick leave to be granted with the payment of 50% of the employee’s average daily earnings to employees who are required to self-isolate. This applies regardless of the length of employment insurance records. The provision is enhanced to 100% for medical workers.

Maternity Leave

Women are entitled to 70 days of maternity leave prior to the expected delivery date and 56 days (70 days for complications or multiple deliveries) starting from the delivery date. At the woman’s request, a part of the leave of 70 days before the due date can be shifted and used in part or in full after childbirth.

Salary payment during maternity leave is based on submitting a sick leave medical certificate to the employer. When calculating maternity pay, the employer will consider the employee’s average salary in the 12 months prior to the maternity leave.

Paternity Leave/Caregiver Leave

A father (or another adult family member of a single father or mother, such as a grandparent) is entitled to up to 14 calendar days of unpaid leave to take care of the child after birth.

Parental Leave

A woman (or the child’s father, adoptive parent or guardian) is also entitled to unpaid leave until the child reaches the age of 3 (or 6 if the child needs home care).

An employee who adopts a child is entitled to a one-time paid leave of 56 calendar days. This is enhanced to 70 calendar days in the case of the adoption of two or more children. The leave excludes holidays and non-working days.

Employees in Ukraine are entitled to an unpaid leave of 10 days for the purpose of marriage.

Employees must be granted unpaid leave for a period of 30 days or less as mentioned in the medical support for the care of a sick relative by blood or marriage.

Employees are entitled to unpaid leave for a duration of seven days in relation to the death of relatives by blood or marriage and three days for other relatives.

Employees elected to the elected trade union bodies in the organization are entitled to six days of paid leave for the purposes of union training.

Employees who take external exams (primary or secondary school, postgraduate studies or who are enrolled in evening vocational schools) are granted an additional paid leave of up to 35 calendar days.

The below are other unpaid leaves available for employees:

• Up to 14 calendar days for a mother (or single father) of two or more children under the age of 15 or of a disabled child
• Up to 14 calendar days for war veterans and other individuals rewarded for special services to the country
• Up to 21 calendar days for individuals rewarded for special labor services to the country

There are nine official holidays in Ukraine.

If the public holiday falls on a working day, they are to be considered an ordinary working day and calculation of payment is standard for such days until the war situation in Ukraine is over.