From pizzerias to tech startups, Ukrainian immigrants enter the European job market.

“I realized I wasn’t going to do anything or help anyone if I sat in my sister’s apartment, so I pulled myself together, hit the net and started looking for work,” said Ms Palichuk, 34. A lawyer and technology executive before the war.

At least 400,000 Ukrainian refugees have found work in Europe since the war began, including more than 200,000 in Poland, nearly 100,000 in the Czech Republic and nearly 20,000 in Italy, governments in those countries said.

More than 5 million Ukrainians have applied for asylum in the European Union, 3.7 million of them have applied for a special program that allows them to work, study and receive medical care in the Union for three years. Now, as the war enters its sixth month, some migrants are taking jobs that are often hard to fill in Europe’s labor market.

Europe has experienced labor shortages in recent years, a combination of decades of low birth rates and an ever-increasing mismatch between existing workers and high-skill firms. The Covid-19 pandemic has boosted the labor market as unemployment rises and the economy reopens during the initial lockdown.

Highly skilled Ukrainian tech workers have taken jobs at Amazon.com Inc.,

Vodafone Group PLC and other companies in Europe. Ukrainian entrepreneurs are starting businesses in Denmark, the Netherlands and elsewhere. A popular destination for the Ukrainian diaspora before the war, Lisbon is attracting Ukrainian tech startups that have fled Kiev.

Europe Ukraine has launched an online version of its initiative to recruit skilled workers specifically for Ukrainian immigrants. The group has set up other resources to help job seekers, including a program translated into Ukrainian that helps people create online resumes and cover letters that can be used to apply for jobs across the EU.

In the year In 2011, Anna Petrova founded Startup Ukraine, an organization that provides services to entrepreneurs. When she ended up in Denmark after the Russian invasion, she wanted to use her extensive experience helping Ukrainian startups. “Entrepreneurship is a way for Ukrainians to achieve financial independence and create jobs for others,” she said.

Ms. Petrova helped organize a competition to select 60 Ukrainian women immigrants in Denmark for a business start-up course in Western Europe. The first class, all with previous master’s degrees and extensive work experience, graduated in early July. The aspiring entrepreneurs want to start businesses in Denmark and elsewhere in tech, fashion, food, education and other industries.

“If you were a professional in Ukraine before the war, you wouldn’t want to be cleaning floors in Denmark or Germany,” Ms. Petrova said.

Not all Ukrainian immigrants can work even if they want to, and they are often highly educated, economists say. Most refugees are children with their mothers, who are responsible for childcare. Their qualifications may not be known and language may be a barrier.

Ms Petrova, who is seeking funding to replicate the Danish entrepreneurship course in the UK and other European countries, said starting a business could in some cases be the answer to that dilemma. While it is demanding to do so, you usually set your own hours, so it can be a solution for women whose husbands stay in Ukraine, Ms. Petrova said.

Sandra Leitner, an economist at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, which focuses on Central and Southeast Europe, said many Ukrainian migrants should have no problem finding work if they can handle personal issues such as childcare.

Immigrants are also doing low-skilled jobs that Europeans shun. A Ukrainian couple were employed as housekeepers and dishwashers at the Residenz Heinz Winkler, a five-star hotel southeast of Munich. A manager said many former workers left the hospitality industry during the outbreak.

Marina Litvin arrived in Italy from Kharkiv, the second largest city, in mid-March with her 10-year-old son and 18-year-old sister. She would work the lunch shift at a pizzeria, then a second shift from 5:30 to 1 or 2 p.m., which the locals refused to take. The owner of the restaurant in a northern tourist town told her he probably wouldn’t open this summer if she didn’t take the job.

Vodafone is among the companies in Europe that have launched an initiative to fast-track Ukrainian applicants. The telecommunications company received more than 1,200 job applications, 60% from women, and hired nearly 100 Ukrainian nationals, including some with hard-to-find technology skills.

Bunk BV in the Netherlands, an online bank with 400 employees and customers across Europe, has hired 18 new arrivals, including Ukrainians who fled after the war and Russians who left their country to protest the occupation. Ukrainian employers include coders and workers in marketing.

“We wanted to help the refugees, but before the war we had Ukrainian workers and they are very good, so we know that we will find qualified workers,” said Bunk founder and CEO Ali Niknam.

Ms. Palichuk moved to the Netherlands as a technology executive and was hired as a project manager a month later.

“Before the war, I was doing executive-level jobs, but I realized that I wouldn’t be able to get this kind of position right away,” she says.

Anna Tia remembers being startled out of bed by the bombs in Kiev on the first night of the war like it was yesterday. She spent several weeks in the countryside before moving to the Netherlands, where she got a job in public relations for a foundation that helps Ukrainians leave their homeland.

Ms Tian, ​​30, recently moved to Lisbon to join six colleagues from her pre-war job as head of communications at a Kiev-based investment fund. She lives in an Airbnb apartment while looking for her own place.

“Of course, we all have dreams of returning home, which is what we plan to do when the war ends,” Ms. Tian said. “For now, this is our new reality and we’re making the most of it.”

Write Eric Sylvers at eric.sylvers@wsj.com and Lucy Papachristou at lucy.papachristou@wsj.com