The number of Polish firms planning to lay people off has increased sharply, despite employment standing at a record level, a new study has revealed.
Grant Thornton’s report, published on December 29, found that in the coming 12 months, employers planned to decrease the number of jobs rather than create new ones.
“The CEOs of only 13% of medium and large companies want to increase employment. This is a visible decline from 36% a year earlier,” Grant Thornton’s experts wrote.
“The percentage of companies, which plan to reduce their workforce, has gone up 2-fold, from 12% to 23%,” the report said, adding that, despite the fact, that the condition of the Polish labour market was extremely good in 2022, next year could be difficult.
“The tendency to fire employees is now at its strongest in the 14-year history of the research carried out by Grant Thornton,” the report noted.
According to experts, it is unlikely that Poland’s record low unemployment, which stood at 5.1% in October, will be maintained in 2023.
“This would mean that the gradual decrease of unemployment in Poland, which has been visible since 2013, will come to an end,” experts wrote, adding that, on the other hand, the employment rate in Poland’s economy was record-high at 6.51 million.
“Even if unemployment goes up by 50%, this would mean only a step backwards by three or four years, and not a completely new tragic situation,” a Grant Thornton expert was quoted as saying.
Grant Thornton is an international company providing assurance, tax and advisory services. It has 62,000 employees in 140 countries, including Poland.
The survey was conducted among 10,000 CEOs of medium and large companies worldwide, including 100 in Poland, in the 4th quarter of 2022. (The First News/Business World Magazine)