The number of foreign workers in Poland has reached 1.02 million, accounting for 6.7 percent of the country’s total workforce, according to the national statistics office.
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As of the end of April, around 1,021,000 foreigners were employed in Poland, up from 1,011,600 a month earlier, the Statistics Poland (GUS) agency reported on Monday.
These foreign workers hailed from more than 150 countries, with 67.9 percent coming from Ukraine, Statistics Poland said.
Belarusians account for 11.7 percent of the foreign workforce, followed by Georgians at 2.5 percent, Indians at 1.9 percent, Moldovans at 1.3 percent, and Filipinos at 1.1 percent.
An estimated 2.5 million foreigners live in Poland, according to a study earlier this year by the Polish Economic Institute (PIE), a Warsaw-based think tank.
In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of Ukrainians working in the off-the-books tax-evading segment of the economy, according to the Polish Economic Institute.
The trend has gained momentum since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
As of the end of August, over 773,300 Ukrainians were registered with Poland’s Social Insurance Institution (ZUS), yet reports from the State Labour Inspectorate (PIP) indicated a rise in illegal employment among Ukrainians, reaching 16 percent in 2023, up from 11 percent the previous year, according to Polish state news agency PAP.
As Poland faces a labour shortage and an aging population, major employer organisations are advocating for „legal, sustainable wage-based immigration” to bridge gaps in the job market.
According to the Rzeczpospolita newspaper, many Polish entrepreneurs are worried that stricter immigration policies could make it harder to hire workers.
Few foreign workers in Poland perform highly skilled jobs, according to a report this summer.
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Source: IAR, PAP