The personnel issue is currently critical for manufacturers of construction materials along with low demand and problems with electricity supply, relevant associations told the Interfax-Ukraine agency.

"Already now, Ukraine is experiencing a shortage of personnel at all levels. This is one of the factors that can critically threaten the integrity of cement production processes and restrain the development of the economy as a whole. Today, some highly qualified employees are defending Ukraine in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine – this personnel problem is one of the most serious challenges, and not only for the cement industry," said Executive Director of the Ukrcement association Liudmyla Kripka.

According to her, training qualified personnel for cement production takes a long time. In addition, the cement industry has long been considered a "male" profession. These factors, together with mobilization, have had an extremely negative impact on the labor market in the industry.

"A compromise between the needs of the front and the economy is necessary. The solution is possible if mobilization primarily concerns those who do not work at all. And now they are mainly mobilizing those who actually work," Kripka said.

According to President of the All-Ukrainian Union of Construction Materials Manufacturers Kostiantyn Saliy, about a quarter of the employees of construction materials manufacturing enterprises have already been mobilized.

"The lack of sufficient reservations remains a pressing problem in the industry: out of 200,000 workers, about 50,000 have already been mobilized," he said.

Despite the reservation of some employees, the personnel shortage still affects production processes, noted Director of the All-Ukrainian Association of Autoclaved Aerated Concrete Manufacturers Oleh Syrotin. In addition, small enterprises in the industry are sometimes deprived of the opportunity to reserve at all due to their inconsistency with the characteristics of critically important companies.

At the same time, no less important problems in the industry are disruption of logistics, reduced demand and power outages.

"Manufacturers solve some problems themselves. For example, they install powerful electric generators at enterprises, partially reserve their workers and take other measures," said the expert.

According to Syrotin, uncontrolled power outages lead to an increase in the cost of production, since generators are not designed for long blackouts, and the shutdown of production entails additional costs.