Almost half of employers offer Ukrainians approx. PLN 18/ h gross, and already 28 percent of them decide on a rate exceeding PLN 21/h gross, according to the first edition of the "Polish Labor Market Barometer" by Personnel Service. What's more, at the end of February, every fourth company declared that they would be willing to pay a Ukrainian employee more than a Pole, just to attract staff from the East. The coronavirus has verified these declarations. Experts point out that although the earnings of Ukrainians who are still in Poland have not changed, the wage growth dynamics have stopped. And this was quite large – in some industries, the earnings of Ukrainians increased by up to 20 percent y/y.

“The outbreak of the coronavirus weakened the position of Ukrainian workers in the Polish labor market. Due to lockdown in industries such as HORECA, a significant part of services or the automotive industry, the staff deficit has ceased to be as severe as until recently. Increasingly, the positions occupied so far by Ukrainians are taken over by Poles who have the advantage of having no time limits on employment. But the Ukrainians who stayed in our country do not have to worry about the salary," Krzysztof Inglot, President of the Management Board of Personnel Service, said.

The first edition of the "Polish Labor Market Barometer" shows that Ukrainian employees can count on attractive salaries in Poland, especially if we combine them with payments in Ukraine. The minimum wage for our eastern neighbors as on January 1, 2020, is UAH 4723 per month. This gives an average of UAH 28.31/h, or about PLN 4.2/h. This means that an employee from Ukraine receiving PLN 17 per hour of gross work, earns four times more in Poland than in his homeland.

(WBJ)