Housing Shortage
Labor Shortage
Poland Several Hundred Thousand Workers Short
Classified Polnews
Warsaw, Poland 25 July, 2007 Poland's Ministry of Labor estimates that Poland needs several hundred thousand more workers and is looking to the East to import workers while at home there are 1.6 million Polish workers unemployed and people leaving the country to work in West.
The westward migration of Poles continues. Though there are jobs in Poland and wages are rising, Poles are still opting to work in Western Europe.
With unemployment down to 12.4%, there are 1.6 million unemployed. Considered a high number in the mid 1990's, now bringing it down to that level is considered an achievement. And that was done in large part by the emigration of a large part of the work force to the West.
Because the 1.6 million unemployed are not taking the several hundred thousand jobs available, the Government has opened the labor market to people from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus by allowing for 3 month work permits no more than twice per year.
According to some commentators, opening the job market to people from these countries for three months at a time may not be effective. The training and administrative costs to employers may just be too high for them to bother.
And bringing several hundred thousand workers into the country will bring problems with them. The Government is concerned that they will bring their families with them and settle in ethnic communities and create security problems such as those that exist in France and the UK. So it says that it is going very slow and closely studying what it must do in opening its job market to more people for longer periods.
The Government has not addressed the issue of where the people will live. There is a housing shortage now. Adding several hundred thousand people to the list of those already looking for housing will only exacerbate the effects of the current shortage.
The solution may rest in solving the problem of the 1.6 million people who are registered unemployed. The Government has said that at least 30 percent of them do not want to work.
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