Work. Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands – this is how much Poles earn in emigration, report of the National Bank of Poland

The National Bank of Poland has published the report “Poles working abroad in 2022”. It presents the results of a survey of emigrants from Poland to Great Britain, German and the Netherlands. These are the countries where the largest number of economic migrants from Poland reside. The survey was conducted between December 2022 and January 2023 on a sample of 1,000 respondents in Great Britain, 1,000 respondents in Germany and 500 in Netherlands.

Among those surveyed in the UK and Germany, almost half arrived in the country in 2015 or earlier. In the case of the Netherlands, almost 70 percent emigrants began their current stay in this country in 2017 or later.

Interestingly, according to the report, emigration in Germany is made up of people who are on average older than emigrants in Great Britain and the Netherlands. It was noted that “Polish economic emigrants can be considered well-educated.” More than 20 percent have a university degree. of them. People with secondary school education predominate – about 50%.

As we read, as in previous years, Poles work primarily as workers and skilled craftsmen and perform simple work. The largest percentage of respondents performing work requiring specialized qualifications occurs in Great Britain. In the opinion of the authors of the report, the importance of, among others, smallest language barrier than in other countries.

“Knowledge of English is much more common in Polish society than knowledge of German or Dutch, and in some specialist professions (e.g. health care) both passive and active knowledge of the language of the host country is usually required,” it was pointed out.

The report shows that in Germany the main economic sectors in which Poles worked in 2022 are industry, agriculture, trade, construction and hotel industry. In Great Britain, the main sectors of work for Poles were industry and the hotel and catering industry (in total, 43 percent of respondents work in them). In the Netherlands, almost 50 percent of respondents work in agriculture and industry. A large percentage also work in transport.

The NBP emphasized that “a comparison of wages in selected sectors of the economy in the countries where Poles emigrate and in Poland indicates that gross wages continue to differ by more than twofold.” The smallest difference concerns agriculture, and the largest difference concerns construction, transport, hotels and catering.

In Great Britain, almost 70 percent working in the hotel and catering industry worked for remuneration below PLN 2,000. pounds per month. In the Netherlands, in industry and agriculture, the highest percentage of emigrants earned less than EUR 2,200 per month. “Significantly higher wages occurred in the construction industry,” it was added. As we read, in Germany – in the sectors in which the largest percentage of Poles work – the highest wages were in construction, and the lowest in agriculture and trade.