Labor Remuneration in the Agriculture Sector of Ukraine from the Decent Work Perspective

Abstract

Agriculture has become one of the key sectors of Ukraine’s economy. It plays a vital role in ensuring the security of the Ukrainian and global food markets. To have qualified and competent employees, an effective remuneration policy must be designed to provide decent wages. The purpose of the research is to substantiate the theoretical and methodological foundations for the study of the remuneration policy from the point of view of the implementation of the concept of decent work and to analyze the remuneration policy in the agriculture sector of Ukraine to determine the directions for its improvement. The analysis of scientific literature, the ILO’s target priorities of decent work, and the parameters of decent pay led to the creation of a system of 31 indicators with defined standards and methodological principles for determining each of them and a methodology for calculating a composite indicator. The analysis of wages in the agriculture sector in Ukraine was carried out according to the developed indicators, and a composite indicator was calculated. The study showed that the agriculture sector belongs to the industries with the composite indicator of decent wages below the average level. It has been proven that the remuneration policy in the agriculture sector of Ukraine is currently not favorable and negatively affects the human and innovative potential of the sector. To overcome the identified problems, recommendations were made regarding the development of a remuneration policy in the agriculture sector based on the principles of decent work, namely, ensuring a decent level of wages, eliminating arrears in wages, developing a transparent remuneration policy, increasing the effectiveness of social dialogue in regulating wages, strengthening the responsibility of social partners, implementation of measures to create equal opportunities in practice.