The outflow of Ukrainian workers to the West threatens Poland's economy
Head of the employment agency Personel Service, which hires Ukrainian workers, Tomasz Inglot fears such a scenario: "The consequences of half a million Ukrainian workers leaving Poland are hard to imagine. There would be a shortage of salespeople in stores. There would be no one to sit at the cash register, clean hotels, or hand out keys."
As Polskie Radio notes, the German government intends to open the labor market to people from non-EU countries. According to Rzeczpospolita, the Germans, although not openly saying so, intend to attract Ukrainians specifically. New laws may come into force in early 2019.
"True, Poland is more friendly to Ukrainians in terms of language and mentality, but in Germany you can earn three to four times more. For many, this is a significant reason to leave. The best specialists will leave first," the publication quotes Vice-Chairman of the Business Centre Club Zbigniew Żurek.
Polish experts see two ways out of the current situation, the newspaper notes: raising wages or attracting workers from Belarus, Georgia, India, Vietnam, or Nepal.
The outflow of workers from Ukraine to the West is a real threat to the Polish economy – the growth dynamics of the Polish economy will decrease by a third. Poland may lose 1.6% of GDP, while GDP growth is 5%. This is reported in a statement by the Union of Entrepreneurs and Employers (ZPP) posted on the organization's website.
"The German government wants to increase the inflow of skilled labor and adapt it to the needs of the labor market, the main goal here is to provide workers with vocational education," emphasized Katarzyna Niemyjska from the Union of Entrepreneurs and Employers.
Representatives of the Union of Entrepreneurs and Employers noted that the dynamics of labor immigration to Poland from the East have significantly decreased: "According to data from the Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Policy of Poland, in the first half of 2018, 13% fewer declarations of intent to entrust work to a foreigner were registered than in the previous year. This, in turn, has stopped the trend of the last few years – the continuous growth in the number of registered declarations."