CBS News
Ukraine’s population has shrunk by 10 million since Russia first invaded, according to U.N. estimate
Geneva — Ukraine’s population has declined by around eight million since Russia invaded in February 2022, sparking an exodus and sending birth rates plunging, the United Nations said Tuesday. The U.N. Population Fund said there had not been a census, but that there clearly had been a dramatic population decline in war-torn Ukraine.
“Overall, Ukraine’s population has declined by an estimated 10 million since 2014 and by an estimated eight million since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022,” UNFPA’s regional director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia Florence Bauer said in comments sent to journalists.
Ukraine’s population stood at around 45 million in 2014, when Russia first invaded, occupying and annexing Crimea, the agency said, citing data from the national statistics office.
By February 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the population had dwindled to 43 million, and it has plummeted further to just 35 million today, it said, citing a combination of government and UNFPA data.
Speaking to journalists in Geneva, Bauer said the dramatic decline was due to “a combination of factors”.
Already before the war, Ukraine had one of the lowest birth rates in Europe, and like many countries in Eastern Europe, it had seen many young people leave in search of more opportunities abroad, she said.
But in the two and a half years since the full-scale invasion, some 6.7 million people have fled the country as refugees while the birth rate has fallen to just around one child per woman, she said.
Fermin Torrano/Anadolu/Getty
“That’s one of the lowest in the world,” she said, stressing that this was well below the theoretical replacement rate of 2.1 children that each woman on average must have to maintain the population size.
At the same time, Bauer said, there are the “several tens of thousands of casualties (from the war), which of course add to the equation.”
Neither Ukraine nor Russia have released casualty figures since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, but U.S. officials estimated in August 2023 that at least 70,000 Ukrainian service members had been killed. Since then Russia has made incremental gains along the vast front line stretching right across the east of the country.
Chipotle Mexican Grill job applicants better get used to conversing with AI — their first interview could be with an artificial intellgence-powered system named “Ava Cado” rather than a human hiring manager.
The fast-casual Mexican restaurant chain said Tuesday that it is partnering with Paradox, a maker of what the technology company calls “conversational” AI, to launch the new hiring platform.
By collecting basic information about candidates, Ava will free up restaurant managers to focus on other tasks, according to the company. The AI can also schedule interviews and even make job offers in real time, the company said. Ava is also a polyglot and able to conduct interviews in English, Spanish, French and German.
The new technology is expected to reduce the amount of time it takes Chipotle to hire an employee for an in-restaurant position by as much 75%, Chipotle said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch.
Chipotle plans to deploy the system across more than 3,500 restaurant locations in North America and Europe. The technology is currently being introduced at restaurants in a phased approach that’s expected to be complete by the end of October.
In addition to collecting biographical information, Ava can engage with job applicants and answer their questions about the company, according to Chipotle.
“Paradox operates as if we’ve hired additional administrative support for all our restaurants, freeing up more time for managers to support team members and provide an exceptional guest experience. We’re excited about the early improvements we’re seeing,” Chipotle chief human resources officer Ilene Eskenazi said in a statement.
A number of other major restaurant chains, retailers and other companies have turned to Paradox’s AI hiring tech, including Applebee’s, McDonald’s, Panera Bread, Taco Bell and Wendy’s.
Although AI can expedite the hiring process, it can also be controversial as a recruiting tool. Some studies have found that it can lead to biased assessment of candidates and unintentionally discriminate against people based on their race or gender.
To guard against the misuse of AI in hiring, New York City in 2021 passed a law that requires companies that use the technology to disclose its use to job candidates. Employers are also required to conduct annual third-party “bias audits” of their automated hiring systems to ensure the technology isn’t discriminating against certain types of candidates.
The North Carolina county that is home to Asheville overcounted deaths caused by Helene by as many as 30, according to a statement Tuesday from its sheriff’s office and data from the state, significantly reducing the death toll from the historic storm.
Buncombe County officials, who previously reported 72 deaths, are now deferring to a state tally of 42 deaths for the county.
The county’s number dates back to an Oct. 3 news release in which county officials reported that “72 lives have been lost due to Hurricane Helene,” repeating a number cited by Sheriff Quentin Miller at an earlier media briefing. But state officials, relying on reviews by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Raleigh, have consistently reported a number lower than that for the county. The number for Buncombe County included in the state’s tally has stood at 42 since at least Oct. 10.
On Tuesday, the Buncombe County Sheriff’s office acknowledged in a statement that the number of deaths in the county was lower than the number it provided.
“In the early aftermath of Hurricane Helene, all deaths were being classified as storm related and from Buncombe County. However, as the days progressed, BCSO was able to identify who had passed away due to the hurricane, who was in fact from Buncombe County, and who passed away from other causes,” Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Christina Esmay told CBS News in a statement Tuesday. “Compounded with the lack of consistent communication, due to widespread outages, the Buncombe County fatality number that was initially provided to Sheriff Miller has decreased.”
The sheriff’s office did not provide additional information.
The Office of Chief Medical Examiner in Raleigh typically reviews weather deaths and makes a ruling on cause before reporting numbers through state officials, a process it has used in past storms for years. But in the chaos following Helene, a number of counties reported fatality numbers independently of the state. The state’s tally has gradually increased through Tuesday, but the climb has slowed as bodies have been examined.
A spokesperson from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services told CBS News that Buncombe County is “relying on the state to report storm-related deaths.” Hannah Jones, the spokesperson, said the state’s count of storm-related fatalities stands at 96, with 42 of these deaths were in Buncombe County.
“We do not have information about how Buncombe County was determining fatality numbers for the death totals they were reporting for their county. We understand that Buncombe County decided to stop their independent reporting a couple weeks ago and are relying on the state to report storm-related deaths,” Jones said.
Another county, Henderson, had previously reported two more deaths than the state, but said on Tuesday that it agrees with the state’s tally of 7 deaths.
Using the new North Carolina figures, CBS News has now confirmed through Tuesday at least 215 total deaths across multiple states due to Helene.
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.