To wait out the hostilities, Ukrainians most often choose Warsaw and other large cities in Poland
“They say we are taking on some costs related to refugees from Ukraine. Well, I want to say that if you count the money they spend and the taxes they pay, today I would risk putting forward the thesis that Poland not only does not lose because of Ukrainians, but Ukrainians are working for Poland,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki made such a statement at the end of May. As BBC notes, this happened just two months after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, when millions of Ukrainians were forced to leave the country due to danger to themselves and their families.
According to Eurostat data as of the end of May, Poland hosted the largest number of Ukrainians among other European countries – over 1.1 million people. Of these, almost half are children and youth, the rest are mostly women of working age.
The first months of the war have already shown that most of them adapt well to the new realities. According to experts, almost 40% of working-age displaced persons from Ukraine have already found official employment in Poland, and over 71% acknowledge that they support themselves through their own savings or income. They make purchases and rent housing, boosting the consumer market and filling the labor market in Poland.
“The process of settling and temporarily organizing the lives of refugees from Ukraine should be recognized as exceptionally smooth and effective. This is a kind of social phenomenon. Guests from Ukraine have been very quickly ‘absorbed’ by the flow of Polish everyday life,” says Łukasz Mazurkiewicz, president of the Polish analytical center ARC Rynek i Opinia.
This is the second wave of Ukrainian migration to Poland. Since 2015, Ukrainians began to travel en masse to Poland for work due to the economic crisis, so this country is very familiar to Ukrainians.
Sushi, borscht, and manicure
Victoria and Natalia, along with friends and children, left for Poland shortly after the start of the war. They lived near Katowice, a city in southern Poland. Victoria says that local Poles provided them with housing, treated them very well, and supported them in every way, but the women earned money for personal needs from the first weeks themselves. “We cleaned, made dumplings, pierogi, borscht in jars, chicken Kyiv for sale,” she recalls. “Now one of our girls makes sushi for sale.”
Three months into the war, when the Russians had already withdrawn from the Kyiv region, Victoria returned to her husband in Fastiv, while Natalia from Irpin stayed and does not plan to return. She says her house is completely destroyed, and she could only return to her mother. In Ukraine, she worked as a surveyor engineer on the railway, but now in Poland she is taking courses at the employment center, learning the language, and hopes to work in human resources.
“All our girls who worked in beauty, medicine, pharmaceuticals – everyone already has a job and most are officially employed. Near Lublin, many went to work in agriculture,” she says. “I still need to finish studying, but the main thing is that my son gets into university here, and we will find work.”
According to Polish law, displaced persons from Ukraine who have applied for temporary protection due to the war can legally live and work in Poland for 18 months. They and their children have access to healthcare, education, and other social guarantees.
Studies confirm that about 40% of refugees from Ukraine have already found official employment in Poland. “This is simply incredible. The determination of these people, how easily they adapted in terms of language and conditions in Poland,” says Dominika Pszczółkowska from the Center of Migration Research at the University of Warsaw. “Usually, refugees who arrive in a new country need years to achieve such numbers as Ukrainians have in a few months in Poland.”
And this does not include those working informally or those earning income remotely from their Ukrainian job or business, the researcher emphasizes.
Second wave
The current arrival of refugees from Ukraine is already the second powerful Ukrainian wave. After the severe economic downturn of 2014-2015, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians went to work in Poland. And after the introduction of visa-free travel and permission to work simplified for three months out of six, there were even more Ukrainians in Poland.
In 2018, Polish authorities already spoke of over a million Ukrainian workers in Poland. Even then, Ukrainians had a significant impact on the local economy. The influential Polish publication Gazeta Prawna compiled a list of 50 people who had the greatest influence on the Polish economy in 2017. Second place then went to the collective image of Ukrainian migrant workers.
“Construction, agriculture, retail trade, and services have relied on workers from Ukraine for years,” says Łukasz Mazurkiewicz. “These are immigrants whom Polish employers and Polish society have known and valued for many years; they assimilate easily and are culturally close.”
Atypical refugees
Olga Kuraksa, now General Manager Poland at the large IT company Ciklum, also left for Poland because of the war. She left with her 4-year-old daughter, 12-year-old son, and nanny. Her husband could not leave Ukraine due to martial law. The family settled in Gdańsk, renting an apartment on Airbnb in the city center. At Ciklum's Polish office, Olga signed a local contract and is now officially employed in Poland.
Now she jokes that at the beginning she had not one job, but three, because she had to follow news from Ukraine, help evacuated colleagues settle in, and organize the daily life of her own children in the new place. Especially since the family brought a minimum of belongings from home. “I told the whole family then that our things should fit in one suitcase,” says Olga. “But I still don't feel like buying anything for myself. Sometimes I can buy some clothes for the children, because they grow very fast, and I want to please them. For example, I bought my son a new iPhone, although I would never have done that at home.”
In their new location, the family tries to lead an active life and spend money primarily not on material things, but on emotions. "We go to the sea, go to concerts, walk a lot, and ride bikes or scooters together. This is incomparably more valuable than any dress," she adds.
A study by ARC Rynek i Opinia showed that although not all Ukrainians in Poland work officially, 71% of those who arrived support themselves with their own funds. In April alone, Ukrainians abroad spent over $2 billion, according to the National Bank. "It turns out our refugees are not quite refugees, but rather wealthy tourists who actively support the European hospitality industry," commented Roman Kachur, Ukraine's representative to the World Bank, to Ukrainian Forbes.
Polish experts estimate that in the first quarter of 2022, including the first month of the war, Ukrainians spent $138 million in Poland. This is 43% more than in the same period last year. And this is just the beginning. The next quarters will show a much larger increase, experts believe.
For example, according to the Central Statistical Office of Poland, in April alone, retail trade in the country grew by almost 20% compared to the same month last year. "The strong growth is related to the purchase of clothing, furniture, home furnishings, as well as medicines and cosmetics. This is primarily the effect of migration from Ukraine," the publication Wp.pl quotes the conclusions of the Polish Economic Institute.
New impetus
Overall, the Polish economy is going through not the best times. Inflation in Poland has been rising for the second year in a row. This June, the highest inflation rate in 24 years was recorded here – over 15.6%. Polish publications raise the question: will there be a recession in the country, or will the current slowdown become the biggest crisis since 2008.
This is partly due to internal problems, partly to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020-2022. The situation is complicated by the war next door, rising energy prices, etc. But experts do not cite the mass arrival of Ukrainians among the negative factors; rather the opposite: "I think the impact is more positive than negative, these are additional people who work here, spend their money here, bring their savings. All this benefits the Polish economy," says Dominika Pszczółkowska.
Migrants represent at least three opportunities for the host country's economy, says Anatoliy Amelin, director of economic programs at the analytical center "Ukrainian Institute of the Future." They bring money with them, so demand grows; they work and create a product, which means additional taxes and a contribution to GDP. Moreover, the more migrants, the cheaper their labor becomes.
"Ukrainians who previously lived in Poland say that the cost of labor in some professions has fallen by about half," he explains. "People arriving today are ready to work for less money than before. So Poland can produce goods and provide services twice as cheaply, which is also a competitive advantage for it."
Analysts at the British company Oxford Economics predict that even under a conservative scenario, if 250,000 Ukrainians remain in Poland, this will result in additional GDP growth of 2-3% by 2050. "Although the arrival of Ukrainian refugees in Poland may lead to significant financial costs (from the budget – Ed.) in the short term, we believe that in the long term, the increase in economic potential will more than compensate for this," says Oxford Economics economist Mateusz Urban.
Women and children
However, the war has still hit the Polish labor market. Due to martial law, most men who previously worked here in heavy seasonal jobs, agriculture, construction, or transport cannot leave Ukraine.
Therefore, despite the fact that over 1 million Ukrainians have arrived in Poland, local companies complain that there is no one to work in certain professions. After all, the majority of those who arrived are women and children. Moreover, children, who are freely accepted into local kindergartens and schools, immediately became an additional burden on the Polish education system. In addition, the Polish government allocates the same allowance for minor children as for Poles – 500 zlotys per month (about $100).
However, Anatoliy Amelin believes that the benefits of attracting such a number of children for Poland are significantly higher than the costs. According to a pre-war study by the "Ukrainian Institute of the Future," the average Ukrainian family spends from $80,000 to $100,000 on taxes, goods, and services to raise a child from birth to age 18.
"Every year a child lives in Poland, about $5,000 is spent on additional consumption for them," he explains. "For Poland, this is a clear advantage, but for Ukraine, it is not. Because we are losing the consumer market, the opportunity to produce and sell new products."
That is, even if the Polish state pays financial aid for each child, Ukrainian parents will spend at least 4 times more on their upkeep.
"Let's say mostly women with children have left, but they are more middle class, they are young, proactive, many had their own businesses," says Olga Pyshchulina, an expert at the Razumkov Center on gender and social issues. "Children have gone to school, they are adapting, changing their identity, entering universities, and in the near future they will not return to Ukraine."
Most Ukrainians declare that they will return to Ukraine as soon as the war ends and the danger passes. The percentage of those who want to stay in Poland forever, according to researchers, is about 25% of those who left. But in the long term, if the war drags on and even more Ukrainians want to stay here forever, such a number of young people and children will already have serious consequences for the demographic situation in Poland, which has an aging population and suffers from the outflow of youth to wealthier European countries.
"Poland urgently needs to change this situation," believes Lukasz Mazurkiewicz. "From this point of view, the presence of a large number of Ukrainians is a positive phenomenon. In the short term, it means more labor hands today, and in the long term, future population growth."
"Even in the short term, ambitious young people who stay will undoubtedly give a boost to the Polish economy," adds Pyshchulina. "And we understand that if the hostilities do not end, men will also seek to leave and reunite with their families."