Polish cities losing workers to foreign jobs

Photo: Glowimages

City-dwellers stand for about a million out of 1.6 million Poles who were working abroad in 2011. In 2004, they were the smaller group, with the majority of migrants coming from villages, reports Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

Before EU entry, mostly villagers who already had families abroad decided to leave. Now, the process has become easier and more accessible, said Pawel Kaczmarczyk, a migration expert from the University of Warsaw.

At the same time, agricultural subsidies from the EU have improved the financial situation in rural areas and a large number of farmers now prefer to stay in the country, another academic, Wojciech Lukowski, said.

The largest number of Poles going to work abroad come from Tarnow and Zabrze in southern Poland and from Bialystok in the east of the country.

Demography experts quoted by the newspaper said that the poor situation on the labour market in those cities in the main reason for large migration numbers. The bankruptcy of manufacturing businesses in cities such as Tarnow was an additional negative factor.

With increased urbanisation, already about 60 percent of the country’s population lives in cities and towns. (kw/jb)