The total amount of wage arrears in Ukraine in 2017 increased by 32.2%, while in December 2017 they fell by 8.3% and as of January 1, 2018 amounted to UAH 2.368 billion, the State Statistics Service has said.
According to its data, in December 2017 wage arrears at economically active enterprises decreased by 12.7% and on January 1 this year amounted to UAH 1.272 billion.
Wage arrears in December last year decreased in Zakarpattia region (by 76.5%), Chernivtsi (54.5%), Ternopil (51.3%), Volyn (44.2%), Ivano-Frankivsk (42.6%), Kirovohrad (by 39.1%), Kherson (by 25.8%), Chernihiv (by 20.9%), Dnipropetrovsk (by 16.4%), Donetsk (by 15.7%), and Khmelnytsky regions (11%).
At the same time, the growth of wage arrears was recorded in Zhytomyr (21.5%), Poltava (15.5%), Zaporizhia regions (12%) and Kyiv (0.4%).
By early January 2018, more than three-quarters of wage arrears at economically active enterprises accounted for industry (79.9%). Almost half of the debt was generated in Donetsk (29.8%) and Luhansk (17.3%) regions.
In December 2017 wage arrears rose in the information and telecommunications sector by 41.1% (to UAH 9.163 million), wholesale and retail trade by 25.1% (to UAH 22.304 million), and real estate transactions by 3.5% (to UAH 49.052 million). (Interfax-Ukraine/Business World Magazine)