In 2020, over 64,000 work permits for citizens of Asian countries were issued, according to data from the Ministry of Development, Labor and Technology. According to Personnel Service experts, a decline by 7 percent compared to the previous year means a reversal of the upward trend recorded in previous years. Despite this, employers will still use Asian staff, although they mainly care about Ukrainians.

Last year, work permits in Poland were granted to over 64,000 people from 40 Asian countries. For comparison, at the same time, such consent was obtained by over 295,000 Ukrainians. However, when analyzing the decreases in the permits granted, it can be noticed that the pandemic and the economic collapse cooled down the enthusiasm of Asians to work in Poland to a much lesser extent than in the case of Ukrainians.

“In 2019, the number of Asians who obtained work permits in Poland increased by 18 percent y/y and the number of Ukrainians by 39 percent. Then, in the pandemic-marked 2020, the figures decreased in both cases, but the difference in scale is significant. In the case of Asians, the number of permits decreased by 7 percent, i.e. less than 5,000 people. In turn, the number of Ukrainians applying for a work permit in Poland fell by 11 percent, which translates to over 35,000 fewer new employees,” Krzysztof Inglot, President of Personnel Service and an expert on the labor market, said.

In 2020, the most permits were granted to Georgians (8,200), who advanced to the leading position from third place. In the second place, as in the previous year, were Indians (8,200), who received only a few dozen fewer work permits than Georgians. The last place on the employee podium was taken by the Filipinos (7,400), whose percentage increased the most from the top of the ranking (by 17 percent compared to the previous year). Taking into account all Asian countries, only the number of Indonesians (by 1,800 to 3,900) and South Koreans (by 1,100 to the level of 3,000) increased more.

In contrast, the biggest decrease compared to 2019 was recorded by last year's leader, i.e. Nepal, whose citizens last year received 5,700 permits (by 38 percent, i.e. 3,500 less than in 2019, when there were over 9,100).

(WBJ)