The state and possibilities of human capital development in Ukraine in the military and recovery context

The article considers the issue of overcoming the shortage of human capital in Ukraine through the use of social sustainability pillars related to the national labor market and the national education system. The importance of the problems of preserving and consolidating human capital is highlighted through the need to focus the state's efforts on the qualitative component of human capital formed by vocational and higher education systems. The possibilities for maximizing the efficient use of available human capital are demonstrated through the need to ensure the inclusiveness of the national labor market. The article provides an analytical assessment of the international approaches to understanding human capital and its social role. The authors outline the main pillars of human capital formation, which, according to the UNDP approach, are based on investment in education, improving the health care system, improving living conditions and social integration, and pursuing policies of economic growth, innovation and investment attraction. The article shows the losses of Ukraine's human capital resulting from the shocks of the war, which are associated with demographic, social, healthcare, material, intellectual and other losses. The presented sociological data allow to assert that as of mid-2025, the humanitarian situation in Ukraine remained difficult, which gives grounds to state that there are significant losses and a risk of further growth of the national shortage of human capital. The authors assess the consequences of the war-related losses of Ukraine’s human capital for the education system and the national labor market. The study emphasizes the existence of professional imbalances in the national labor market due to the destructive impact of the full-scale war on the infrastructure and the human capital of vocational education. In the second case, the authors investigate the extent to which the economy as a whole, through the effective use of human capital, is able to accumulate the results of this process in added value, and thus transform human capital into economic growth. The article summarizes the recommendations concerning institutional changes to strengthen the interaction between Ukraine’s educational sector and labor market, aimed at preventing further depletion of Ukraine’s national human capital caused by wartime educational losses.