7/07/2006

Poland's new role as a hub for the labor market

Since joining the European Union and the opening of labor markets in the West, Polish people have been flocking to Western European countries to do work that the people of those countries have been unwilling to do. Even though they have been leaving the country and reducing the number of people in Poland in the labour market, the unemployment rate in Poland has remained high. Ironically, there still exists a labor shortage in Poland.

Polish strawberry farmers are considering turning their fields under because they are unable to get labor to pick their strawberries. The people who normally pick their strawberries are going to other countries to pick strawberries because they make more money. And the remaining unemployed in Poland have no desire to pick strawberries.

Polish farmers want to open the Polish labor market to Russian and Ukrainian strawberry pickers. There are apparently some workers in Poland now, illegally, but the illegal workers are not in Poland in sufficient numbers to satisfy the demand of the farmers. They want more.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Agriculture Andrej Lepper has seen the problem and is attempting to get the Polish government to open the market to the Ukrainian and Russian workers.

If Andrej Lepper succeeds in this quest, it will leave Poland in a rather interesting situation. The people from Poland who want to work will go West, the people in Poland to do not want to work will continue being supported by the government and people from the East will move west into Poland to work.

Of course, there is another solution to the problem and that is to either raise the price of the strawberries and/or make it possible for the farmers to pay higher prices to the strawberry pickers for the amount of strawberries that they pick. But since there is little likelihood of either of these things happening, Poland will become a labor trading hub and labor importer- exporter in Europe.
Source:masterpage.com.pl



Flights to Poland

Novea - Business in Poland