Effects of the global financial crisis have already visibly hit the labor markets of many EU countries. This caused job seeking Polish migrants to seriously consider returning home to avert redundancy abroad.
Slawek Szefs reports
The most numerous Polish workforce is across the English Channel. Depending on the source quoted, figures speak of 900 thousand to even 1.2 million Poles employed in the UK and Ireland. Now, roughly every third of them faces redundancy because of austerity measures introduced by small companies and giant enterprizes, alike.
Professor Krystyna Iglicka, job migration expert from the Center of International Relations in Warsaw, says the spreading of the crisis situation in Europe may be the major factor triggering a speedier return of Poles back home.
'Those Poles who decided to undertake secondary jobs, jobs which are not socially protected, they will be the real victims of this crisis situation. Definitely those who emigrated from Poland and decided to take jobs below their qualifications. Highly educated people working, for example, in construction, services or agriculture.'
Presently, many of them are thinking about packing their bags, either due to personal financial calculations or simply forced to make the move by cuts introduced by their British, Irish and other employers.
Will the Polish economy be able to absorb such a wave of returnees within a short period? Professor Iglicka is sure most of the skilled craftsmen will not have problems with finding good employment in Poland. But there are others...
'Those who work according to their skills may also lose their jobs. But it's not a problem for them or for Poland. If they come back, they will get a job again. However, those highly educated who didn't get more qualifications, if they come back to Poland, being made redundant in the UK or Ireland, they will be unemployed also here. And this is a real problem.'
Similar tendencies have been observed among a sizeable group of Poles - by comparison to the country's modest population size - working in Iceland. Michal Sikorski, the Polish consul in Reykjavik, says the avalanche of growing prices provided a strong stimulus for the sudden exodus.
'Iceland is part of Schengen, so we do not have exact data from border crossings. But we do know the number of pension documents filed has increased dramatically and this is proof Polish workers are leaving the island. There are currently umpteen thousand Poles resident in Iceland. According to our estimates some 2 thousand have left over the last three weeks, alone.'
It is evident the wave of Polish job seekers started four years ago has been arrested. Worries of work force drain in Poland are no longer valid as the present boomerang trend will provide a hefty supply in a number of economic sectors experiencing deficit. So far the spreading crisis has been gentle to Poland's economy. But the negative effects of the turmoil are yet to be felt, also by Polish society.