Building experience Abroad
The émigré issue may soon resolve itself, however, as the development boom in Britain and Ireland cools down.
In the UK and Ireland, the local and national media devote daily attention to the increasing number of Polish workers. The British and Emerald Isles are not the only places where Poles have congregated. Many have also left for Germany, the Benelux countries or even Russia.
Among the professions most frequently represented by Poles are engineers and construction workers. According to Con Murphy, director at Project Management (PM) Group Polska, an engineering design, technical consulting and management company, unskilled Polish workers can now earn three times more in Ireland than in Poland. Semi-skilled workers can also earn three to four times as much, but the higher the skills, the smaller the wage gap. "That's why we don't see many senior specialists with some 15 years of experience leaving the country," says Murphy.
Scarcity of workers
Beata Radomska, the president of Cigno Consulting, says that for many years the number of people educated in certain specializations has been very low, while the demand for such employees has been growing rapidly. "We have a huge problem finding people to work as cost managers or project managers, and I see that other people are looking around for the same people," says Radomska.
The situation is easily seen in the statistics. According to the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, at the end of June 2006 the number of unemployed who had previously worked in the construction industry amounted to 157,692, a drop of 21 percent compared to June 2005. Within the same period of time, the number of work offers almost doubled.
According to a survey by Cigno Consulting, real-estate wages in the top management range between some zł.12,000 in Eastern Poland to zł.25,000 in Central Poland. Lower management positions earn between zł.6-12,000 a month, a specialist makes about zł.5,000, and the least-qualified workers around zł.3,000.
As a result, Radomska says, wages have been growing for the last 12 months, and especially so within the last six months. "There have been a number of cases that general contractors visited their competitors' building sites and bought off part of the workers. Because of this, wages have increased and now even workers doing the simplest job earn a few thousand. Companies increase wages in order to keep their workers," she adds.
Follow the money
Jakub Dowgird from Skanska confirms that other companies have tried to lure away their workers. "When there is a shortage of qualified workers, companies try to attract them with higher wages," says Dowgird.
Due to the lack of workers, companies sometimes turn to older engineers who were taught different building standards and offer them jobs.
Murphy explains that for many years people in the sector were badly paid and that's why they went to other sectors. "The country has gone out of a building recession into a building boom in a very short period of time, literally in less than 12 months. In the recession there is a natural wastage of people. There will be an adjustment period when construction workers start coming back. Once they come back they will find themselves earning twice as much as when they left, but significantly less than in Ireland," Murphy says.
The top jobs
Radomska and Murphy agree that the positions employers most desperately want to fill are those of specialists and engineers. What are the necessary qualifications? For project managers, the potential employee must be able to wholly manage office and residential projects and have a good command of foreign languages, in addition to the requisite engineering skills.
These qualifications can be acquired at technical universities and vocational schools. However, many such schools have either been closed, as in the case of vocational schools, or academically refocused, because there simply wasn't enough interest in the subjects.
Ewa Chybińska, from Warsaw Technical University, says that students had no motivation to take up engineering studies. "Technical studies are more difficult than others. For a number of years, math wasn't an obligatory subject at the matura [school-exit exam] so young people were not prepared to study at technical universities. Now the market is creating a demand for such specialists," she says.
The number of graduates from the Land Engineering Department grew from 169 in 2004 to 264 last year. The Ministry of Education plans to reintroduce math as a compulsory subject in the matura exam in 2009. This should prepare more students to take up technical studies.
Change in the air
Polish developers and construction companies hope the situation will improve before the effects of education change arrive, as experts estimate that the construction boom in the UK and Ireland will spend itself within about 12 to 18 months. Then the construction workers, especially those less qualified, will return to Poland.
Radomska says that people who have worked in Great Britain or Ireland are already coming back to Poland. Her company has served as an agent in a few such cases. She believes the number is still too small, but sees light at the end of the tunnel. "Now it should also begin changing because young people see that once they graduate from a technical university they are sure they will get a well-paid job," she adds.
