Polish recruitment continues as skill gaps still need to be plugged even with record unemployment in the UK

Thousands returned to Poland as the financial crisis hit and it became harder to find employment in the UK.

But a study suggests they found the situation to be far worse in their homeland and around a third could be about to travel for a second time, the relative recovery of the £ against the Euro may encourage Polish workers to look towards the UK.  

 

Poland weathered the global recession with reasonable success and was the only EU country to record economic growth last year, but it is still plagued by an unemployment rate of 12.3 per cent, and this figure can rise to more than 25 per cent in the small towns and rural areas that are home to many of those contemplating packing their bags for a second time.

 

But the news that Poles coming home after working abroad have trouble finding Polish jobs and settling down will also renew fears in Poland of what demographers and economists have dubbed the "lost generation". Having spent many years working in menial jobs in the UK, returning Polish workers now with no skills suitable for the Polish market economists fear that they will become a burden on the Polish state.

 

Britain absorbed the vast majority of the hundreds of thousands of Poles who left Poland after EU accession in May 2004 with overall number thought to exceed 1 million of which at least 50% remain as many specialist agencies continue with Polish recruitment to fill skill gaps in the UK .

 

Author: Peter Arkwright