Polish employers are increasingly reluctant to sack their staff because of mass emigration to the UK and Western Europe, official statistics have revealed.
Figures from Poland’s Central Statistics Office found the number of workers dismissed from their posts in the past year fell by 30.6%, with the number of employees resigning growing by 12.5%.
The office said the number of Poles leaving to work abroad grew from 340,000 to 580,000 between 2005 and 2006. However, unofficial estimates have consistently put the number of Polish workers leaving the country at about one million.
Analysts claimed the trend identified by the report would continue over the next few years.
Karolina Sedzimir-Domanowska, an economist at the PKO BP bank, said: “This is evidence that, in today’s market, employees are dictating terms rather than bosses. This is happening because of a growth in the need for specialists but also because so many people have gone to the West to work.”
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The figures showed that unemployment in Poland was continuing to fall by more than 5% during the fourth quarter of 2007.
Since Poland joined the EU in 2004, the Home Office has approved 472,103 applications from Poles for work permits in the UK. However, the rate has slowed considerably over the last year.
