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What future for Polish workers abroad?
Poles are wanted as employees by French farmers and European elites, even in Germany, says a report by one daily newspaper. EU countries which opened their markets to Poles, are generally satisfied with the Polish workers. But in Germany, which hasn't opened the job market to Poland, and where the black job market is thriving, two-thirds of respondents would like to delay the opening.
In German society, which is generally most worried about losing their jobs, the fear of Polish immigration is most prevalent among the unemployed and poorly educated people, and among residents of the former Eastern Germany.
This is according to the social research by OBOP polling center, commissioned by one Polish daily newspaper.
But other than that, Poles are generally welcome as workers all over Europe, but especially in those places, where they are already working legally. And it gradually becomes just a stereotype, that Polish people are employed only in low-skilled jobs, says Agata Piątek, head hunter of a Polish recruitment company: 'From what I can see, when we first joined the EU, we proved that Polish people are hard-working and that they are also very good professionals. So, right now, I think we can see Polish people working in the London City, in banks and accounting jobs there's plenty of them, but also physical workers in many other countries, like Spain, or Germany.'
The French are most enthusiastic about opening their job market to Poles. Especially farmers are in favor, counting on cheap work force. At the same time, low-skilled workers are mostly against Polish immigrant employees, in fear of competition.
The Brits are generally happy with Poles, whom they see as hard working, intelligent and responsible.
The same holds for Ireland, says this Catholic chaplain for immigrants from Dublin: 'The Polish people do very well, because they have a strong reputation in Ireland now of being very hard workers, good workers, very talented and very keen. Many of them are very young, enthusiastic and boy, do they work hard... so, they are well received.'
However, while many EU countries want Polish workers, the question remains whether Poles still want to emigrate in large numbers. A recent report "Returns to Poland" by the Warsaw-based Institute of Public Affairs examined the present trends in the intentions and plans of Poles who consider economic migrations.
According to the research, Poles who decide to migrate in search of work, rarely decide to leave Poland for good. The mostly consider coming back at some point. At the same time, those who have come back, are open to the option of going aborad again.
As far as the UK is concerned, most Polish migrants have gone there for economic reasons. The obvious factor of potential decisions to come back is money.
'A lot of us talk about how cheap the pound is now to Polish zloty. That's one thing that you think you could go back for, because it doesn't really pay off working over there,' says Gosia Pruska, a Polish immigrant to the UK. But there's a number of other conditions, she continues: 'The whole propaganda now back in the UK is that we should all go back because we are now preparing for the European Championships in 2012 so there will be a lot of jobs available and everybody will be happy. I know quite a lot of people that are going back in a year or two years.
But again, I think it depends what you want to do back in Poland and how you feel in England, cause there are certainly people who don't feel very well in England and they don want to go back because they miss their families.'
Institute of Public Affairs research says only 18% of those who go abroad are disappointed. 45% are satisfied and 24% feel they are better off than they anticipated.
Source: www.polskiradio.com by Najfeld
28/05/2008
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