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A declining population, due to an aging generation, low birth-rates and the brain drain that has constantly been plaguing the country in recent years; Poland is now planning to open it’s doors to Filipino workers. Filipinos who are allured by the beauty of Eastern Europe may try their luck and work in Poland; Despite the fact that the current right-wing government is against taking in refugees and migrants from the Middle East and North Africa. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki declaring: “We will not be allowing migrants from the Middle East and Northern Africa to enter Poland.” these were supposedly due to security concerns and backlash because of what is currently occurring in other European Union members.
The same can also be said with Czech Republic and Germany, who are also in the same conundrum, both countries looking to hire Filipinos and other nationalities in Asia. Stanislaw Szwed, who is Poland’s Secretary of State in the Ministry of Famly, Labour and Social policy has said, as per ABS-CBN news, that they are planning on signing a labor agreement with the Philippines by September at the earliest.
“The Deputy Labor Minister [Stanislaw] Szwed has approached us, and in early August we responded with a draft agreement stipulating the protection mechanisms we expect for Filipino workers, which will hopefully be signed during the remainder of this year,” said Patricia Ann V. Paez, Philippine ambassador to Poland, in a recent interview with the Nikkei Asian Review.
“We are on course to conclude an agreement. I hope that in the autumn (September to November) we will be able to at least sign a preliminary accord with the Philippine authorities,” Szwed said.
President of the Philippine Association of Service Exporters, Inc. Elsa U. Villa, said that meetings with Polish companies have given them the green light that Poland will be importing thousands of workers in the manufacturing and agricultural sectors. This would mean employment for thousands of Filipinos, not only in the aformentioned sectors, but also in I.T. and even long-haul logistics.
Poland is suffering from a labor shortage due to most of its young, working-age citizens, deciding to move to more affluent countries in the European Union. Nonetheless, even though this is being currently remedied with talks of hiring foreign workers, problems arise as the newly minted Polish embassy in the Philippines, still has no consulate section–forcing Filipinos to apply for their Polish visas in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Filipinos who will be planning to move to Poland will most likely have an easier time, due to shared family values, a strong catholic faith, and of course labor rights for O.F.W.’s.
