State Labor Service Update: Government takes first step and strips agency of redundant functions
Kyiv • UNN
The Cabinet of Ministers has stripped the State Labor Service of redundant functions to optimize its operations. The agency will now focus on occupational safety and support for people with disabilities.
The Cabinet of Ministers has adopted a resolution stripping the State Service of Ukraine on Woodworking (State Labor Service) of non-core functions. Instead, the State Labor Service will focus more on people's safety at work, compliance with labor rights, and supporting fair rules in the labor market. This was reported by UNN with reference to Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko and Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 658 dated May 27, 2026.
The government has taken the first step towards updating the State Labor Service. We are removing redundant functions that duplicated the work of other bodies or had long since lost their meaning. Instead, the State Labor Service will focus more on people's safety at work, compliance with labor rights, and supporting fair rules in the labor market
According to her, the State Labor Service will have more powers to support the employment of people with disabilities and employers who create accessible workplaces.
Addendum
According to the government resolution, it is planned to carry out a separation of certain functions of the State Labor Service.
In particular, it is planned to establish that the main tasks of the State Labor Service are:
- exercising state supervision and control in the sphere of activities related to high-risk objects, for compliance with legislation on labor protection;
- providing employers and employees with information and consultations on effective means of complying with legislation, the supervision and control of which is within the powers of the State Labor Service, and preventing possible violations thereof.
The State Labor Service, in accordance with the tasks assigned to it:
- exercises state supervision (control) in the field of ensuring chemical safety and management of chemical products for compliance with relevant hygienic standards and for the implementation of necessary measures to minimize (control) risks;
- implements measures provided for by chemical safety management plans (currently such a norm is absent);
- conducts inspections of employers regarding the fulfillment of the quota of workplaces for the employment of persons with disabilities;
- exercises state control in the field of employment of persons with disabilities for compliance with employment legislation (currently such a norm is absent);
- conducts an assessment and provides a conclusion regarding the compensation of costs for reasonable accommodation measures or the provision of subsidies for their implementation (currently such a norm is absent);
- conducts an assessment of compliance with criteria that give the right to benefits to enterprises/entrepreneurs of labor integration of persons with disabilities and enterprises of protected employment, and provides a conclusion on compliance with such criteria (currently such a norm is absent);
- carries out inspections of compliance by the working bodies of the executive directorate of the Social Insurance Fund of Ukraine and territorial bodies of the Pension Fund of Ukraine with legislation on compulsory state social insurance in terms of appointment, calculation, and payment of benefits, compensations, provision of social services, and other types of material support, implementation of insurance payments in order to respect the rights and guarantees of insured persons;
- develops norms and rules on issues of subsoil protection, safe conduct of mining operations, and their surveying support (currently such a norm is absent);
- processes and analyzes information on the annual plan for the development of mining operations;
- carries out licensing of activities for the production of industrial explosives and control over compliance by business entities with relevant license conditions;
- provides employers and employees with information and explanations regarding effective means of complying with legislation and preventing possible violations, in particular by conducting information campaigns, as well as providing consultations directly at workplaces, which, in the case of a special access regime to individual objects or premises of the employer, are carried out with his prior agreement.
In addition, it is planned to establish that the State Labor Service will exercise state mining supervision on issues of:
- compliance with requirements for the safe conduct of mining operations during geological study and development of mineral deposits, construction and operation of underground structures, liquidation (conservation) of mining operations;
- fulfillment of requirements for subsoil protection during the establishment of conditions for mineral raw materials and operation of mineral deposits;
- compliance with the rules for conducting geological and surveying work during pilot-industrial development and operation of mineral deposits;
- completeness of extraction of estimated mineral reserves and components present in them, compliance with the established procedure for accounting for mineral reserves, validity and timeliness of their write-off;
- compliance with rules and technologies for processing mineral raw materials;
- correctness and timeliness of measures guaranteeing the safety of people, buildings, structures, and the natural environment, mine workings, and wells from the harmful effects of work related to subsoil use.
The State Labor Service will also approve the liquidation and conservation of mining facilities or their sections in the prescribed manner; projects of work related to pilot-industrial development of minerals; rules for the technical operation of mineral deposits and processing of mineral raw materials in terms of compliance with the requirements of subsoil legislation.
At the same time, the State Labor Service is deprived of some functions, in particular:
- supervision of the activities of the Social Insurance Fund of Ukraine;
- conducting expertise of design documentation for compliance with the requirements of regulatory legal acts on ensuring safety during the handling of industrial explosives;
- approval of projects for pilot-industrial extraction of minerals, projects and annual plans for their extraction and processing, as well as projects for the construction of underground structures regarding compliance with the requirements of the Mining Law of Ukraine, legislation on industrial safety and labor protection;
- issuance of licenses for the production of industrial explosives and control over compliance with license conditions.
Note that the relevant resolution was adopted in connection with changes in legislation; there was a need to bring the regulations on the State Labor Service into compliance with the requirements of the law, in particular, as established by Law No. 3992-IX.
According to the law, a redistribution and optimization of functions between central executive bodies has been carried out. Thus, in May 2024, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a bill by which the State Labor Service of Ukraine is deprived of some non-core functions as part of deregulation.
Earlier, the Ministry of Economy, Environment, and Agriculture of Ukraine reported that according to preliminary calculations, the minimum effect from reducing part of the procedures could amount to 4.473 billion hryvnias per year for business. At the same time, the freed-up administrative resource of the State Labor Service, according to the ministry's estimate, could reach 27.205 million hryvnias per year and be directed to risk-oriented supervision and inspections where there is a real danger to workers.