Personnel crisis in the defense industry: how a growing market began to eat itself

The Ukrainian defense sector today demonstrates a paradox. On the one hand, there is historical growth: several dozen new defense-tech companies, thousands of engineers, record production rates, technological solutions that seemed fantastic just a few years ago. On the other hand, there is a deep personnel crisis, which we ourselves are exacerbating.

This crisis has two components. The first is an objective war. The second – artificial and much more dangerous – is aggressive cannibalism within the industry.

Is there really a shortage of personnel? The reason for the shortage is obvious – the war. Some specialists have been mobilized, some have left, and some are working on the verge of burnout. This is an objective reality.

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A less obvious, but no less devastating reason is the lack of a long-term personnel strategy in the industry itself. Most defense companies live in the mode of constant avral: “we need an engineer here and now.” Without investing in personnel development.

As a result, most hardly invest in:

• systematic training;
• onboarding of people without defense experience;
• cultivation of middle and senior specialists within teams.

Instead, a market is being formed where the only growth tool is persuasion. This does not create an environment for the development of new personnel. Only redistributes existing ones. This is the real picture, so a solution must be sought for the entire industry.

What is happening now in defense-tech is what I call aggressive cannibalism. Companies do not grow specialists – they “squeeze” them out of each other. Unfortunately, we are no exception, such is the market. However, we will not go that far.

Headhunting has become a tool of mass survival strategy. Teams dissolve, projects slow down, institutional memory disappears. As a result, everyone loses: even those who lured the necessary specialist today.

In peacetime, this would simply be a problem of HR ethics. In the military, it is a matter of national defense capability. Because every missed deadline, every broken R&D direction is a specific possible risk for the front.

We are not competing with each other – we are competing with the enemy The key mistake is the perception of other Ukrainian defense companies as the main competitors. Our real competitor is the Russian military machine, which works on scale, systematically and over a long distance. They do not spare people, but they have much more resources to squeeze out the maximum.

When we domestically start fighting for the same people without creating new jobs, we are cutting the branch we are sitting on. Defense cannot develop according to the logic of the classic commercial market. There is a different responsibility and a different price for a mistake.

What to do with it First, it is necessary to recognize the problem at the level of the industry, not individual companies. At least start talking about it publicly.

Secondly, invest in personnel training: corporate training, joint educational programs, internships, retraining of civil engineers in defense. Yes, it is longer and more expensive. But this is the only way to grow without self-destruction.

Third, agree on the rules of the game. Not a cartel or a “conspiracy”, but basic industry ethics: when headhunting ceases to be raiding and becomes the exception rather than the norm.

We should think in categories of state capacity, not quarterly results. Because defense is the only effective infrastructure for our survival. Either we once again rally and stand, or Russia will still use its parade uniform.

Instead of an afterword We have already proven that we are capable of creating unique technologies during a full-scale war. The next challenge is to prove that we are capable of growing as an industry.

Because if we continue to solve the personnel crisis through internal cannibalism, growth will end much sooner than the war.

Andrii LavrenovychHRD defense-tech company General Chereshnya

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