Over the past twelve months the amount of vacant workplaces in the Polish labor market have increased by 22%. Nevertheless, Poland still has one of the lowest vacant workplaces indexes in the EU. Currently, only Cyprus and Greece have lower results. A commentary from Bartosz Grejner, Cinkciarz.pl analyst.
According to the Polish Central Statistical Office (GUS), Poland had 78k vacant workplaces in the fourth quarter of 2016. This was 14k more than in the fourth quarter of 2015. Moreover, the amount of new workplaces increased by 2.2% and the amount of liquidated workplaces were by 19.7% lower.
Market needs experts
The amount of vacant workplaces were not equal in particular sectors or regions. At the end of the fourth quarter of 2016, the vacant workplaces rate was largest in the industrial processing sector, commerce sector and transport sector, which totalled 51.9% of vacant workplaces in Poland. What’s crucial is that the average salary in the above sectors was lower than the national average.
The most demanded professions were that of industrial worker, craftsman, qualified expert, mechanic and machine operator. The demand for office workers was approximately 50% lower than for both industrial workers and craftsmen. Moreover, vacant workplaces for public authority representatives, qualified clerks and managers constituted 20% of the entire quota.
East has higher unemployment and lower wages
There are large disproportions in the amount of vacant workplaces between the western and eastern regions of Poland. In the latter case, vacant workplaces constitute 9% of the entire quota. This doesn’t include the mazowieckie voivodeship, which has been created approximately 25% of vacant working places in Poland.
Taking the above into consideration, the unemployment level in the eastern region is relatively high (up to 9%). Moreover, the average monthly wage in eastern regions is by approximately 15% lower than in the other regions of Poland.
Far behind Germany
We should mention the job vacancy rate, which reflects the job demand, as well as potential dissonance between job offers and qualifications of potential candidates. When the job vacancy rate is low, this may suggest a weakness in the labor market, as well as low pressure on salaries. This is a situation in which employers are not forced to increase salaries, in order to attract employees.
The latest data from Eurostat shows that the Polish job vacancy rate is at the level of 0.7%, which is the same as in both Spain and Portugal. However, the labor market in both of these countries has been in poor condition. The only countries with a lower job vacancy rate are Cyprus (0.6%) and Greece (0.3%). Both of them have recently experienced an economic crisis.
The average job vacancy rate for the EU countries is 1.8%. However, this index for the United Kingdom is at the level of 2.5% and for Germany – 2.6%.
Few vacancies and raises
A comparison between the job vacancy rate for Germany and for Poland shows an interesting phenomenon. At the beginning of 2007, this index for Poland was at the level of 2.1% only to reach the level of 0.3% in 2012. The situation in Germany was to the contrary. At the beginning of 2007, the German job vacancy rate was at the level of 1.1% and has been increasing since.
Even though the amount of vacant workplaces in Poland has been increasing in YOY interpretation, these growths have been sufficiently low enough to limit an increase in wages. Not only is Poland almost at the bottom of the EU job vacancy rate ranking, but also the internal differences in the Polish labor market can increase the disproportions in wages.