Warsaw: Poland needs migrant workers from Ukraine to ensure sustainable economic growth
Poland needs the Ukrainian migrant workforce in order to ensure sustainable economic growth, the Chairperson of the Narodowy Bank Polski (the National Bank of Poland), Adam Glapinski, said in an interview with Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, a Polish newspaper.
Mr. Glapinski stressed that the ability to attract manpower from neighboring Ukraine and Belarus was one of the key vital tests for Poland’s economy.
Poland felt an acute shortage of qualified personnel particularly in the past years as the country experienced a steady economic growth and contraction of unemployment levels.
At the same time, along with economic growth, the Polish labor market grappled with such negative trends as aging of the population and labor migration among young people that led to considerable outflow of the Polish workforce to wealthier countries of Western Europe. The 38-million nation was left with only a 16-million workforce.
So far, Poland has been able to compensate for the domestic shortage of manpower with cheap labor from Ukraine and Belarus.
But the Chair of the National Bank feared that liberalization of visas between Ukraine and the EU could lead to a situation where labor migrants from Ukraine would choose other EU countries over Poland, leading to a decline in the number coming to Poland to work.
Currently, the share of Ukrainian manpower in the Poland’s labor market is estimated at approximately 1 - 1.5 million citizens of Ukraine, of whom many work illegally without official permits. According to an assessment of Poland’s Union of Entrepreneurs and Employers, Poland needs at least an additional 5 million employees to ensure sustainable growth.