The Ukrainian government and members of the country's IT community are ready to extend a helping hand to Belarusian IT specialists and help them move to our country if the situation at home makes their work significantly more difficult. Apostrophe journalist Viktor Avdeyenko looked into whether a mass IT immigration should be expected and whether it would turn Ukraine into an Eastern European "Silicon Valley."
Ukraine is ready to take in Belarusian IT specialists who may face problems at home, Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov has said.
"Recent serious problems with internet access and mobile communications, along with systematic disruptions to the banking system, are forcing Belarusian IT companies to look for opportunities to relocate to other countries... Together with Ukrainian IT businesses, the Ministry of Digital Transformation is ready to create all the necessary conditions for IT companies and specialists to move to Ukraine comfortably," Fedorov wrote on his Facebook page.
It is important to understand that the IT industry is one of the flagships of the Belarusian economy, accounting, as Mykhailo Fedorov noted, for up to 10% of the country's GDP.
Brotherly help
Meanwhile, it has emerged that Ukrainian IT professionals are already in full-scale talks with their Belarusian colleagues about a possible move, and some of them have even started settling into their new home.
Some members of the Ukrainian "IT guild" are ready not only to employ their Belarusian colleagues but also to provide any other help they need, in particular with finding housing. Such offers are circulating on social media (not to mention through personal contacts).
However, many specialists are genuinely puzzled by the initiative announced by Minister Fedorov. According to one of Apostrophe's sources, who wished to remain anonymous, "today Ukraine's own IT people have no room to grow, let alone taking in people from elsewhere."
Anna Kukhar, head of the legal department at Intecracy Group, told the publication that she found it rather difficult to assess the government's initiative, since its purpose was still completely unclear: "We have plenty of our own specialists. Unless it's meant as help for the Belarusian people."
At the same time, she said, specialists from Belarus have always been able to find jobs in our country. "If they have the relevant experience, there are no restrictions at all. But hiring low-skilled Belarusians just to help them — I don't see any prospects in that, because businesses won't take on just anyone," she said.
For his part, entrepreneur and public figure Oleksandr Olshansky, president of the Internet Invest Group holding, believes that Ukrainian IT specialists need not fear competition from Belarusians, since they will most likely continue working on the same projects they worked on at home. "What difference does it make where they are? They were doing something there (in Belarus)," he told Apostrophe.
Olshansky is also not sure that many Belarusian specialists will take up Ukraine's offer: "It's not even certain they'll decide to move at all. A lot will depend on how events unfold there (in Belarus)."
But even if the situation in Belarus escalates, IT specialists there will not necessarily choose Ukraine as their destination; at the very least, their emigration to our country is unlikely to become a mass phenomenon.
"We need to understand whether Belarusians themselves want to relocate to a country that is, give or take, at the same level — it's not Europe, it's not America. As a rule, both Belarusians and Ukrainians want to go there," says Anna Kukhar.
"If they leave, they go far abroad. What is there to do in Ukraine?" agrees Apostrophe's anonymous source.
A harsh climate
Besides purely financial considerations, Belarusian IT specialists may also be put off by our country's business climate, which can hardly be called comfortable.
As Oleksandr Olshansky noted, on paper the conditions for doing business in Ukraine are not bad, "but actual law enforcement may differ from the formal rules."
He recalled that only recently law enforcement agencies were staging "mask shows" (raids by masked security forces) at IT companies in Ukraine, which clearly did nothing to improve the domestic business environment.
Indeed, despite the overthrow of the criminal regime that had actively terrorized businesses, the IT sector came under pressure from law enforcement quite often in 2015–2016. The pretexts for searches were often blatantly far-fetched, and the "special operations" themselves looked more like ordinary racketeering. At the time, many IT companies seriously considered moving to other countries, and some of them did.
There are other factors that may deter potential labor migrants. One of them is taxation. It is no secret that many IT specialists in Ukraine are registered as individual entrepreneurs (known in Ukraine as FOPs). Unlike many other FOPs who work for companies on a permanent basis and use the tax benefits available to them (their income tax rate is set at 5%, compared with 18% for employees, and employers do not pay the 22% unified social contribution for FOPs), they work as freelancers on specific projects.
Nevertheless, IT specialists very often find themselves in the sights of the authorities, who seek to have their contracts with the companies that hire them reclassified as employment relationships. "Many people are afraid; they feel they have already broken some rule, because it can be interpreted one way or the other. Our century-old Labor Code can be used to manipulate and blackmail businesses, which is actually what happens," said Anna Kukhar.
Above all, don't interfere
But that's not all. According to Anna Kukhar, the authorities intend to change the principles of taxing IT specialists, and such legislative initiatives "give people in the IT sector a nervous tic." "Of course there are pressing issues that need to be addressed, but in recent weeks it has been real hype — three tax bills. I think we should be given a chance to adapt, or at least be left alone so that we can sort things out ourselves. Leave the IT business in peace, at least for a while," she said.
Despite the obstacles, the IT industry in Ukraine is developing very rapidly, growing by more than 20% a year.
That growth could be even faster, but only two conditions need to be met, Oleksandr Olshansky is convinced: a clear and sensible tax policy, and protection of businesses from all kinds of external interference. "And if this can be resolved, the industry will develop in Ukraine. IT in Ukraine is growing at such a pace that, if it is not hindered, in three or four years it will become the third-largest industry," he said.
Then specialists from various countries, not only from Belarus, will come to Ukraine, and our country could well become a real IT hub. The "Silicon Valley" of Eastern Europe — why not?