Over the past year, the number of employed Ukrainians with temporary protection in Estonia has increased and now stands at 57%, which is 10 percentage points more than last year. This was reported by ERR.
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According to the Police and Border Guard Board (PPA), this week there are 33,412 Ukrainian refugees in Estonia on the basis of temporary protection.
According to PPA speaker Martin Raid, as of July 21 this year, 3,000 applications for temporary protection have been submitted. However, submitting applications for temporary protection is not mandatory, since all Ukrainian citizens have the right to stay in Estonia without submitting such an application.
The number of Ukrainians of working age is about 20 thousand people.
Where do Ukrainians work
As in previous years, Ukrainian refugees most often perform unskilled work (39%). Skilled work is performed by 18%, and 16.8% work in the service and trade sector.
The largest number of people employed is in the manufacturing industry (24.8%), as well as in the administrative and support activities (16.4% of refugees).
About 3,100 Ukrainians are registered as unemployed, which is 6.5% of all unemployed in Estonia and 15.5% of the number of Ukrainians of working age. Overall, the employment rate in Estonia in the first quarter of 2024 was 68.4%, and the unemployment rate was 7.8%.
In the first quarter of this year, the state paid family assistance to Ukrainian refugees in the amount of 7 million euros, and local authorities paid benefits in the amount of 9 million euros for the first half of the year.
Salary
According to the Statistics Estonia, in the first quarter of this year, the average gross salary of Ukrainian citizens in Estonia was 1,424 euros, while the average salary in the country was 1,933 euros.
The head of the migration group of the SKA department, Liis Paloots, said in an interview with ERR that it is impossible to make generalizations about the well-being of Ukrainians, but the state paid less subsistence assistance this year.
“In the case of subsistence assistance paid by local authorities, we see that less than half of the recipients of assistance are persons under temporary protection. “We have seen a certain decrease in the number of Ukrainian refugees among recipients of subsistence assistance,” Paloots said.
Ukrainian refugees who have received a residence permit in Estonia have the same rights and obligations, including compensation and assistance. The exception is pensions: Ukrainian refugees of retirement age have the right to support equal to the difference between their Estonian and foreign pensions if they do not have work experience in Estonia.
