The government eased the rules for migrants from the east applying for jobs in Poland. The new regulations are introducing a number of facilitations for migrants working or looking for a job in Poland. Their arrival from the east can help the Polish economy and contain inflation.

From January 29, 2022, the procedures have been simplified and shortened, and most of the formalities can be completed electronically.

The key change was implemented in the Act on employment promotion and labor market institutions, where the permissible period of employment was determined on the basis of the statement “on entrusting work to a foreigner”. With the statement, citizens of five countries including Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine can legalize their stay in Poland much faster. Until now, they worked for a maximum of six months a year, then they had to return home for the next six months. Now the statement will be valid for two years.

First of all, Ukrainians will benefit most from the new legal solutions as they are the most numerous group of migrants in Poland, between 850,000, and 1.3 million persons.

According to the results of the survey conducted by the recruitment company Personnel Service, employers mostly have a positive (36%) or neutral (49%) attitude towards Ukrainians. Only 8% reported a negative attitude. 42% of employers mention their diligence as the feature that they appreciate in Ukrainian employees followed by experience (32%), quick adaptation (32%) and loyalty (30%).

In the opinion of Prof. Marcin Piątkowski from the Kozminski University, the wider opening of the labor market to foreigners may help limit price increases – both in the short term by limiting tensions on the labor market and inflation, and in the long term, because of the problems with demographics Poland.

According to the analysis of the enterprise sector conducted by the National Bank of Poland and published in January, the demand for labor is huge. The percentage of companies with vacancies in the fourth quarter of 2021 increased to 48.5%. The largest shortages of employees are in transport, industrial processing and construction.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński