Agriculture can suffer from lack of employees

Farmers, fruit growers and gardeners have to face severe shortages of work this year.

"Less than 500,000 people came to seasonal soft fruit collections every year," Wiktor Szmulewicz, president of the National Council of Agricultural Chambers (KRIR), said.

A large part of the employees were employees from Ukraine. Admittedly, the anti-crisis shield introduces facilitation for the seasonal work of foreigners who remain in Poland, but due to the closed borders the inflow of new ones is stopped, and – as estimated by Personnel Service – it is even 160,000 of Ukrainians per month. If the epidemic lasts until June, the borders will not exceed even 480,000 of Ukrainians. It is possible, however, that Poles who lost their jobs during a pandemic will look for work in the countryside.

“There will be problems with soft fruit and vegetable harvests, where there is a lot of human labor. Without these employees there will be additional huge losses in the countryside,” Szmulewicz added.

Agriculture may become one of the sectors most affected by this shortage. According to Wiktor Szmulewicz, up to 500,000 employees is needed for seasonal harvests each year. 

(Newseria)