Most Ukrainians find seasonal work in agriculture and horticulture
In 2014 alone, Polish labor exchanges received about 400,000 applications from employers intending to hire foreigners. And most of the permits (373,000) were issued to Ukrainian citizens.
The increasing influx of labor from our country to Poland is driven not only by the difficult geopolitical situation in Ukraine but also by the state of the Polish economy. Industries requiring high labor intensity, especially during seasonal work, need an influx of labor. And then labor migrants from Ukraine come to the rescue, who are attracted to work in Poland not only by the size of wages but also by the conditions that the local employer must comply with.
The largest number of foreigners are employed in the agricultural sector: last year, 178,000 employment applications were filed here, 176,000 of which directly concerned Ukrainian citizens (a 50% increase compared to the previous year). Polish households submitted 12,783 applications, most of which were also issued for Ukrainian citizens (a 120% increase). Demand for labor in the construction industry is also growing: local firms registered 54,000 applications for employment of foreign citizens (an 84% increase compared to the difficult year of 2013 for the sector).
Employment of foreign citizens is also dynamically growing in enterprises of the processing industry. Manufacturing companies, especially in the food industry, are increasingly willing to use services of workers from Ukraine. As a result, the processing industry recorded a record number of registered applications (44,151 applications in 2014, compared to 17,739 in the previous year).
In the European Union, one of the most liberal procedures for legalizing employment has been developed and is in effect – submitting a declaration of intention to employ a foreign citizen. As we can see, Polish employers successfully use this opportunity to solve personnel problems that they cannot find among local residents.
Local officials also noticed the increase in the scale of employment of Ukrainian citizens in Poland. 'The Ministry of Labor and Social Policy plans public consultations on the introduction of an information duty for employers hiring foreign citizens on the basis of a declaration of intent to work,' said Marcin Wiatrów, head of the Labor Migration Policy Department of the Department of Labor Market and Social Policy. 'The employer will have to provide information about employment to the relevant state institutions. This information will include confirmation of the actual start of work by the foreigner, which should positively affect the ability to control migration flows and reduce the level of fraud.'