Poles are the hardest working - but some of the least efficient in Europe

Employees from Poland are among the most hard-working people in Europe, spending an average of 1,900 hours at work last year. Nevertheless, the relatively new members of the EU are much poorer than the countries that joined the EU some time ago because of poor efficiency. In Poland the efficiency rate is growing fast, but it is still substantially lower than the European average. It is thought that farmers, who make-up a sizeable social group, are mainly responsible for the poor results. Structural pensions for farmers may decrease the number of people in this sector and correspondingly improve Poland's efficiency by one third. However, the country will have a difficult task matching EU efficiency standards as the employees from the 'old Europe' are constantly trying to improve their efficiency, too. (Rzeczpospolita, pp.A1,B1) J.J.