Recently, analytical materials problematizing the high level of presence of migrants on the labor market have been appearing more and more frequently in Polish quality publications. There is no smoke without fire. The media usually respond sensitively to the information requests of their readers. So, obviously, Polish readers want to know whether significant migration will affect their employment opportunities, the level of wages, the attitude of employers, etc. “We get used to Georgian bakeries, people from India bringing us food home, and we meet people from the former Soviet Union in taxis,” writes one of the most famous and popular Polish dailies “Gazeta Wyborcza” and adds: “in just ten years, we have become a multinational country.” “Migrants supplement, not fill, the labor market,” reassures the Polish publication “Republic” and encourages: “Thanks to foreign workers, our economy has developed faster in recent years, and their influx should further increase GDP growth rates in the coming years.” A popular Polish economic portal Money.pl writes: Poles who had the opportunity to work with foreigners more often notice the positive aspects of their employment.
Polish economic publication Forsal.pl asks a valid question: “According to the data, the number of attacks, robberies, thefts and robberies in Poland has halved in the last decade, Poland has become one of the safest countries in Europe. At the same time, the number of immigrants increased tenfold. How does this fit in with panic stories about migrants?”.
As you know, migrant phobia is a complex phenomenon. It consists of several “fears” – economic, cultural, social, political. The fear that migrants will take away jobs or negatively affect the level of wages is one of the most pronounced. It is not surprising that similar fears and questions arise in Poland, where over the last decade the number of foreigners registered with the Social Insurance Office has increased tenfold. Their irrationality becomes obvious when the media confronts them with objective numbers and data, the results of employer surveys and economic reports on the growth of the country’s GDP.
According to data up to the end of 2023, the number of foreigners immigrating to Poland from EU countries amounted to 39,600 people. people, while the number of foreigners from countries outside the EU is 1,088.1 thousand. At the same time, in the first group, the number has increased by 35% since December 2015, and in the second group, as much as seven times. The largest number of foreigners from outside the EU – 759.4 thousand – are Ukrainians.
Another fairly large segment is Belarusians (129.4 thousand), Georgians (26.2 thousand), Hindus (20.5 thousand), Moldovans (14.8 thousand). Over eight years, the number of employees from Turkmenistan increased the most, up to 62 times, as well as from Georgia (52 times), Indonesia (50 times) and Colombia (48 times). The number of Filipinos and Zimbabweans also increased.
In accordance with report According to the Polish Economic Institute “Poles about foreigners in the labor market – facts, myths, opinions”, more than a quarter of surveyed Polish companies employed or hired foreigners, most often they were refugees from Ukraine. 70% of these companies note that the main reason for hiring foreigners was the lack of Polish workers on the labor market, that is, there were no offers from people with the necessary qualifications. Two-thirds of the interviewed company managers indicated that it does not matter from which country the employee comes, as long as he has the appropriate qualifications. At the same time, 52% of companies pointed to the excessive complexity of the procedures when hiring foreigners as a very significant obstacle to the employment of migrants. Almost half of the surveyed companies complained about the lengthy procedure for recognizing the qualifications of foreign workers. Most often, Polish companies refrain from hiring foreigners, because they are not sure that they will work on a permanent basis.
The report lists the most common myths about migrants. They are contrasted with real statistical data.
The truth is that at the end of the first quarter of 2024, 1.138 million foreigners were registered in Poland, of which 762 thousand are Ukrainians.
According to the popular opinion of Poles, the number of foreigners in Poland is more than 3 million people. A third of Poles named this number.
Almost 7% of workers in Poland are foreigners. This is a real statistic. But 53% of Poles underestimate the share of employed foreigners, considering that they are less than 6%.
62% of Ukrainian refugees are employed in Poland. This is a fact. In return
76% of Poles underestimate the percentage of refugees from Ukraine working in Poland, indicating less than 50%.
29% of all documents legalizing the work of foreigners were issued to workers in the industrial processing sector. At the same time, 60% of Poles believe that most foreigners work in construction.
Such discrepancies reveal the stereotyped perceptions of Poles about the employment of migrants, based on exaggeration of their number and their negative characteristics. Poles also mostly indicate a lower share of working refugees from Ukraine than in reality.
The number of foreigners in Poland who legally work and pay social contributions to ZUS (General Social Insurance Administration) has been growing dynamically since 2012 and reached the level of 1.138 million by the end of 2023. They were mostly citizens of Ukraine. Most of the documents legalizing employment in Poland concerned the sectors of industrial processing, transport and warehousing, as well as administrative services.
In 2023, every tenth newly created company in Poland belonged to foreigners, and most of them were founded by Ukrainians. It is interesting that among the industries in which foreigners created companies, the largest share was in information and communications.
The results of measuring the social distance index turned out to be interesting. Citizens of the European Union enjoy the greatest trust among the surveyed Poles as potential colleagues. Citizens of Ukraine and Belarus were in second place in terms of acceptance. The least willing respondents would agree to work with employees from the countries of the Middle East and Africa. The experience of working with or living with a foreigner makes Poles more willing to accept a foreigner as an employee.
There are also certain professional role priorities.
Poles show a relatively high willingness to accept the services of construction workers, drivers, sellers and catering workers provided by people from Asia and Africa. At the same time, the more the profession requires proper communication with clients, the lower the level of acceptance of migrants from these countries. Among doctors, lawyers and representatives of other highly intellectual professions, Poles are the least ready to see migrants.
Almost half of the respondents see benefits in reducing the shortage of workers in the labor market through the employment of foreigners. A significant part of them believes that this will have a positive effect on the increase in revenues to the state budget thanks to taxes paid by foreigners. About a third of the respondents, in connection with the presence of foreigners in the Polish labor market, expect an improvement in the competitiveness of the economy and an increase in consumption.
In general, although migrants contribute to the development of the Polish economy and help fill vacancies in the labor market, there are cultural and social challenges associated with their presence.
