As war draws men to fight, Ukraine’s women take tough new jobs in machinery and mines
DNIPROPETROVSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) — Kateryna Koliadiuk was curious. The 19-year-old Ukrainian agronomy student spotted an ad seeking women to enroll in a tractor driving course and decided to try. But the industrial vehicle was huge and complex, and she wasn’t sure she could operate it.
“In the beginning I was so scared. In the beginning I couldn’t do this,” she said. She now drives with authority, her manicured fingers resting at the wheel.
From driving tractors to working in coal mines, Ukrainian women are taking jobs once reserved for men, who are being drafted to the front lines in the war with Russia. Women have also signed up to join the armed forces at a higher rate.
Koliadiuk said her family was shocked. “We were told that women should be in the kitchen, at home with children. That is why to go and study such equipment was so scary,” she said. “But then we took care of ourselves.”
It’s part of a crucial government effort to grow an economy devastated by three years of war and address labor shortages created by the mobilization, according to the economy ministry, which leads training programs in construction, agriculture and transport geared toward women.
“Ukrainian women are under a lot of pressure because their men are on the front line,” Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said in an interview with The Associated Press. “When the man is mobilized, the woman is mobilized with him as well.”
Businesses want to hire again after the initial economic shock of Russia’s full-scale invasion, but the labor force has shrunk. About 5 million Ukrainians left the country and are abroad, the minister said, and another million are serving in the armed forces. That’s a lot considering about 9 million Ukrainians are currently employed, she added.
Svyrydenko is Ukraine’s first female economy minister and a symbol of the rise of women in the labor force because of the war.
Before, women were mostly employed in education and health care, social protection and government service, she said. Now there’s demand in the industrial and military areas.
“It is the mindset of both women and employers that is changing,” she said. “Employers are ready to take women on the job more often, and women are ready to diversify their skills.”
In coal mines in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, women are now hired to operate machinery to keep production going. There and elsewhere, men still dominate jobs that require heavy physical labor.
Former accountant Iryna Ostanko, 37, was looking for a new job and decided to become an elevator operator at a mine in the Dnipropetrovsk region. She was inspired by her husband, who has worked at the mine for 15 years. He supported her decision.
“Before, in this place underground, there were no women at all,” she said. “Women appeared here after the start of the full-scale invasion when a lot of men left to defend our country.”
Ostanko had never descended to the mine’s depths of 260 meters (yards). Her training involved one month of theory and another of hands-on training.
“War is making changes, always making changes,” said Viktor Kuznetsov, the mine’s head engineer.
He said the lack of qualified personnel is the main challenge, as many male workers left to join the fight. He has hired over 100 women since Russia’s full-scale invasion, a drastic change.
Without them, the mine could not function, he said.
In Kyiv region, Yulia Skitchko watched new female trainees operate excavators, her high-heeled black leather boots caked in mud.
She is the head of Alef Stroy, a construction machinery rental service. For years, she had dreamed of hiring more women. The war gave her that chance, and U.S. funding gave her the ability to train female hires. They have trained 45 women so far.
“We were told that we are crazy people, this is not possible. Women? Excavator? They will never do this,” she said. “These days, our first women who graduated from this course already have jobs and started working on building construction sites.”
Modern building equipment is easier to operate, she said, and the idea that women can’t do it is a gender stereotype.
“This war has changed our women mentally, and they want to contribute to Ukraine’s rebuilding,” Skitchko said. “We need to give them an opportunity to learn.”
___
Associated Press journalist Volodymyr Yurchuk contributed to this report.
By VASILISA STEPANENKO and SAMYA KULLAB
Associated Press
