Poland sheltered more than 900,000 Ukrainian refugees. Most Poles still support the idea of helping Ukrainians fleeing the war, but some citizens of the country complain about the high costs of taxpayers to help migrants. This is not quite so. Most refugees of working age in Poland already have a job. Currently, they bring more to the country’s budget than is allocated to them.
If we take into account the various types of taxes and fees that Ukrainians paid to the Polish budget in 2023, the total amount of income will be from 15 to 20 billion zlotys (about 4.6 billion euros). 70% of refugees of working age are already fully or partially employed in the country’s labor market.
In addition, after the start of the full-scale war, part of the Ukrainian business moved to Poland. Thanks to preferential conditions, equal to Poles, Ukrainians have registered thousands of companies in the neighboring country. This is also a significant contribution to the state budget of Poland.
“Ukrainians increased Poland’s GDP by 0.7-1.1%, and in the long term this figure may reach 0.9-1.35% annually. On the other hand, the negative impact of refugees on the growth of unemployment or the level of wages in Poland is economically analysts did not record,” said the president of the Polish-Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce Jacek Pehota in an interview for the Ukrainian mass media.
Even before the mass influx of refugees, Poles highly valued workers from Ukraine. The economy of Poland is developing intensively, new factories and enterprises are opened every year. In this regard, the country is experiencing an acute shortage of workers. This deficit can be covered by migration.
According to the results of surveys of Polish employers, Ukrainians rank first among desirable employees (after the Poles themselves). The advantages of our fellow citizens over workers from other countries are the absence of a significant language barrier, quick adaptation of Ukrainians and conscientiousness in completing tasks.
Mr. Pehota notes that in the future Poland will be interested in increasing the number of workers from abroad, in particular, from Ukraine.
“At this rate of economic growth, we need 700,000 new workers every year. The demographic situation in Poland shows that we will not get them due to internal natural growth. Business needs labor migration from abroad, and Ukrainians saved us before the war. Since in In 2022, many Ukrainian men went to war, the outflow of workers caused huge problems, in particular, in Polish construction or transport companies,” says Jacek Piehota.
