Ukraine Targets Morocco Among 70 Nations to Fill Two-Million Worker Gap

Marrakech – Ukraine has placed Morocco on a list of 70 countries under review for labor migration as the war-torn nation grapples with a severe population decline and a deepening workforce shortage.

According to Ukrainian media reports, Minister of Social Policy Denis Ulyutin disclosed that the population on Ukrainian-controlled territory has dropped to roughly 22 to 25 million people. He described the demographic situation as “catastrophic.”

The figure marks a steep decline from late 2025, when Ella Libanova, director of Ukraine’s Institute of Demography and Social Research, estimated the population at 28 to 30 million based on 2024 data.

The head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, Kirill Budanov, has ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Security Service of Ukraine to urgently review a list of 70 countries to ease restrictions and simplify the process of attracting foreign workers.

Morocco appears on that list alongside Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Bangladesh, and dozens of other nations. Workers from these countries are already employed in Ukraine, primarily in logistics and construction, though not in large numbers.

Arsen Makarchuk, head of Ukraine’s State Statistics Service, put the current labor deficit at approximately two million workers. The shortage has placed significant pressure on the country’s employment market and social safety net. Ulyutin noted that Ukraine currently has 13 million unique recipients of social payments and 10.2 million pensioners.

Despite public anxiety over foreign labor, Ukraine’s State Employment Service pushed back against claims of a surge in migrant workers.

Prior to the outbreak of war in 2022, employers received around 20,000 work permits for foreigners annually. That number has since dropped sharply. In 2024, only 4,720 permits were issued. The figure rose to 7,483 in 2025 but remained less than half the pre-war level. The agency stressed that Ukrainians retain priority in employment.

Olga Dukhnich, head of the Demography and Migration division at the Frontier Institute, dismissed online fears about mass labor migration from Bangladesh. She said the Ukrainian market holds little appeal for Bangladeshi workers, who tend to seek employment in the United Kingdom and Gulf states.

Dukhnich added that Ukraine lacks experience with large-scale foreign migration and still holds outdated stereotypes. “Ukraine is not threatened by migration from Bangladesh in the coming decade,” she said. “We would have to try very hard just to attract labor migrants at all.”

Ulyutin projected that around two million people could return to Ukraine after the war ends or a sustained ceasefire takes hold. Even under an optimistic estimate of 29 million, however, the ratio of working citizens to dependents remains critical.

Financial analyst Alexei Kushch warned that the demographic trajectory will only worsen. He stated that Ukraine’s annual natural population loss is comparable to the disappearance of a major city. He also pointed to shrinking life expectancy and the emigration of young men, whose families send them abroad to avoid future mobilization.

According to UN data from the fall of 2024, Ukraine’s population shrank by eight million since February 2022. Libanova has acknowledged that the country will never return to its Soviet-era level of approximately 52 million.