Poland

Polish unemployment does not tell the story

Classified Polnews

Warsaw, Poland September 26, 2006.

The reported unemployment rate in Poland of 15.5% does not tell the story about the work situation in Poland. It does not reflect a reliable figure as to the number of Polish people who are willing to work in Poland.

According to the Polish government Ministry of Labor, at least 1 million of the unemployed are drawing unemployment benefits only to get health insurance. Many of these people are said to be earning income outside the mainstream economy and using the public health system by registering as unemployed.

Polish employers are actually having a great deal of difficulty in finding employees.

Polish emigration to Western Europe continues to be attractive and the number of people willing to work in Poland continues to decrease as they go West to find job opportunities under work conditions that are much better than in Poland.

The Polish Government's could actually create a huge drop in the number of people registered as unemployed if they took a serious look at taking those people off the unemployment registry who are there just for the purposes of getting health insurance.

But changing the health insurance system to remove these people from the rolls would not be politically smart since it would affect over 1 million people. Those 1 million people would not likely vote for the party responsible for taking the health insurance from them.

If You Did Not Find What You Want Here, Use This Search Box