Power outages became a problem for 34% of Ukrainian companies in November

Russia's regular attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure in November became an obstacle for 34% of Ukrainian companies.

This is evidenced by data from a monthly survey of businesses conducted by the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting.

The problem of power, water and heating supply interruptions rose from fifth to fourth place among the main challenges for businesses. The situation worsened compared to October, when only 22% of businesses mentioned this. It should be noted that in July of this year, the lack of electricity was a problem for 78% of businesses.

«The proportion of respondents who indicated power outages increased by more than one and a half times. That is, for every third business in November, this was one of the three main obstacles», emphasized Yevhen Anhel, senior researcher at the IER.

In addition, in October, before the large-scale attacks on energy infrastructure, 39% of enterprises had already experienced downtime due to power outages. At that time, on average, businesses lost 6% of working time, especially in Vinnytsia, Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions. The largest losses were suffered by enterprises in the chemical industry, metallurgy and metalworking.

Researchers expect the situation to worsen in December due to continued intense attacks and cold weather.

«Given the continued intensive attacks by the enemy on energy infrastructure, prolonged power outages, and the onset of meteorological winter, we expect a deterioration in the indicator based on the results of the December survey», the researcher noted.

The monthly New Monthly Enterprises Survey (#NRES) from IER involves about 500 Ukrainian industrial enterprises located in 21 of the 27 regions of Ukraine. It should be noted that Mykolaiv region does not participate in the surveys. The survey has been conducted on a monthly basis since May 2022. The 31st wave of the survey was conducted on November 18-29, 2024.

It was previously reported that according to research, in November 64% of Ukrainian companies experienced a labor shortage due to mobilization or departure of employees. This was the highest figure in the entire history of observations.