“Our company is growing: we bought forty five cranes this year, but it has been a problem for us to find skilled operators. The labour shortage is a well known problem. In the last two years, many people have moved abroad. We don’t have a enough qualified workers.”
Pawel Kedzierski, of crane dealers Grabcranex, makes the reasons for these limits clear: “It’s more and more difficult to find skilled personnel in all branches: welders, crane operators etc, mainly because a lot of people emigrated—you can find them easily in UK and Ireland—but also because of very good results in all sectors of the Polish economy.”
Government data backs up this anecdotal evidence. Since 1993, Poland’s Central Statistical Office has conducted a monthly survey of about 2,200 businesses, taking managers’ opinions on the general economic situation of their business, and the limits that they face. The survey asks the respondents for positive or negative responses to a series of questions, and reports the results as a balance of the answers overall, weighted by the size of the businesses.
In the years since the country joined the union, managers have been increasingly positive about the general economic situation of their business. The survey results identify an annual cycle, from a low in March, to a high in October and November. Each year, the peaks and troughs of the annual cycle have been higher, showing a general upward trend.
This upward trend is seen in this years figures: At the lowest point of 2007, in March, a positive indicator was recorded for the first time, of 7.2%, compared to -38.1% in March 2004. At the peak of the cycle, the trend is upward from October 2004 (12.8%) to October 2006 (31.2%).
However, this October, at the peak of the annual cycle, a slight fall on last October’s figure was reported, with a weighted balance of only 25.3% of businesses responding positively. This suggests that the industry might not be reaching its potential at its busiest time.
The survey examines limits to the respondents’ business activity. The number of businesses responding that they are limited by lack of demand, or availability of credit, has trended down in recent years. But, two limits have risen conspicuously: cost and availability of labour. In April 2004, the weighted balance of businesses saying they were limited by a lack of skilled labour stood at 4%, around the same position it had been for the previous three years. Two months into the country’s membership of the union, in June 2004, the figure was 8%.
The weighted balance of businesses agreeing they were limited by a lack of labour has trended upwards ever since, hitting 61.1% in October 2007. At the same time, the balance of businesses agreeing they are limited by the labour costs had also risen, from 31.8% at the start of 2004, to 58.3% today.
While the trend of labour shortages seems to be continuing, there are signs of hope for the future. The Polish government has launched a campaign to bring migrants back to the country, with websites promoting changes in the country over recent years. Another policy has sought to bring in Polish speaking workers from non-EU states to the east. However, Guzowski says, “We have some workers in Poland from the east, from Ukraine and Belarus, but they are not so well-qualified. They’re generally physical labourers, and only account for a small margin of the labour market.”
The most important factor in solving the problem though may be the increasing strength of the Polish economy. Last year, the country saw GDP growth of 5.2%, compared to 3.1% across the European Union. Guzowski says, “The current year is a consecutive good year for our economy. The building sector is growing, and this should help bring workers back.”
