Unemployment in Poland has fallen below 5% for the first time since 1990, when the country was beginning its post-communist transition.
New data from state statistical agency GUS showed that the unemployment rate fell to 4.9% in June, down from 5% in May. The reading was in line with analysts’ expectations.
The last time GUS recorded a lower figure was in August 1990, when the rate stood at 4.5%. Unemployment peaked at 20.7% in February 2003. The total number of unemployed people in Poland last month, 762,200, was the lowest since July 1990.
According to the Polish Economic Institute (PIE), the drop in the unemployment rate is a result of the good labour market situation but also demographic changes, with Poland’s shrinking and ageing society resulting in a decline in the number of professionally active people.
Economists at PKO, a bank, note that the fall in unemployment “is not unequivocally good news”. While unemployment usually dips in June, this year’s fall is weaker than in recent years (with the exception of the pandemic year 2020), “reflecting subdued labour demand,” they wrote on social media.
GUS’s new data show that the number of people employed in Poland fell in the first quarter by 138,000 compared to the same quarter last year, to 17.19 million. (Notes from Poland)