ByadminExpats in Poland: the current situation in the sector of labour migration
Our information resource is intended for healthcare professionals who are interested in building a career in Poland. Nevertheless, there are often representatives of other professions in the family of a doctor, dentist or pharmacist. This means that information about the situation with labour migration in general may be interesting and useful for our audience. Where do foreigners work in Poland today?
The epidemic has imposed its mark on the flow of foreigners into Poland. Almost 19 thousand fewer work permits were issuedin the first half of 2020, than in the corresponding period of 2019. There are fewer Ukrainians coming to Poland now: during the first 6 months of this year, they got 17 thousand less work permits than during the same period last year.
Talking about citizens of different countries, the largest number of works permits in the first 6 months of this year received:
- Ukrainians – 145 thousand
- Belarusians – 1200 thousand
- Georgians – 4 thousand
- Indians – 4 thousand
- Moldovans – less than 4,000 thousand
- Uzbeks – less than 4,000 thousand
- Filipinos – 3 thousand
- the citizens of Bangladesh and Nepal, 2 thousand permits for each nationality.
The political situation in Belarus did not affect the presented data, since we are talking about the situation in the first half of the year.
Where do foreigners work?
Most often, a work permit for foreigners is issued for such jobs and technicians as industry blue collars and craftsmen, operators and assemblers of machines and devices, as well as workers engaged in simple no qualified work. Ukrainians mostly engaged in industry jobs and craftsmanship. The most common technicians are Belarusians and citizens of Uzbekistan. Ukrainians and Indians mostly come to Poland as professional staff.
There are fewer IT experts, but more doctors from Ukraine
According to the Polish Labour Market Barometer 2020 prepared by the PEsonnel Service, at the beginning of the year, every tenth Polish company employed Ukrainians. Every fifth citizen of Ukraine held a mid-level position, and every tenth did above it.353 work permits were issued for healthcare professionals at the end of the first half of 2020, of which 124 for Ukrainians and 2224 for IT specialists, including 593 for Ukrainian citizens.
Due to the fall of the Polish economy and obstacles in cross-border traffic, interest in qualified experts from Ukraine has decreased at almost all positions. Still, there are a few exceptions. These are doctors and nurses. However, we are talking about a small group of experts who are almost invisible in the total number of permits issued to Ukrainians (145 thousand).
The increase in Ukrainian management in Poland also worth noting as well. However, this group of experts is also minor. Only 50 work permits were issued to managers from Ukraine.
The things went more complicated with IT specialists. Despite they received fewer work permits, they were not in less demand in recent months. They just are working from homes instead of coming to Poland, which reduces the risk of project delays.
Other Ukrainian experts felt the shrink of the labour market in Poland. “Polish companies will attract the Ukrainian experts more readily after returning to the path of stable economic growth. This will not happen earlier than the next year. Still, the workers taking over the jobs which locals refuse doing, seem to be the most valuable”,- summarizes Krzysztof Inglot, the President of Human Resources at PEsonnel Service.
