It gets to the point of curiosities: this year, the Poles intend to bring in about 60 thousand Indians for the fruit and vegetable harvest season. The round-trip flight is a charter paid for by the receiving party (500 zlotys, or about $170 per migrant worker). To this end, the government is preparing a regulation that will open the agricultural labor market for three months to people from non-EU countries. Thus, the authorities hope to learn from last year's experience: then due to a shortage of labor, more than 30% of the strawberry harvest and about 40% of the raspberry harvest rotted, and losses amounted to several million euros.
Recently, local press published forecasts by the European Commission on the prospects for the Polish labor market. It is expected that by 2009 unemployment will fall from the current 13.7% to 9%. According to local independent experts, if this happens, only Western Europe should be thanked. According to the Polish Central Statistical Office, about 1.5 million people have gone to work only in the UK and Ireland (not counting those who boost the economies of other EU countries). For example, about 800 thousand construction workers are currently working in the foggy Albion, earning 4-5 times more than at home. Meanwhile, in Poland, construction sites now willingly accept even people without any special qualifications. The country is experiencing a construction boom, and preparations for the Euro 2012 football championship are on the way, so the authorities are racking their brains: where to get labor? Under these conditions, the government is preparing another regulation that will allow construction companies to hire specialists from Belarus and Ukraine.
A similar situation has developed in the medical sector. According to the Ministry of Health, Poland already lacks about 1.5 thousand doctors and 2 thousand nurses. The reason is the same – richer EU neighbors have opened their labor markets and are actively luring Polish medical workers, offering them 5-10 times higher salaries.
However, according to Polish statisticians, the current officially recorded highest unemployment rate does not actually reflect the true state of affairs. According to their data, many citizens work, so to speak, 'under the table'. At the same time, they continue to be registered as unemployed and receive state benefits. This places a heavy burden on the state budget and costs the treasury tens of millions of euros annually.
Viktor SHANKOV.
Novye Izvestiya