Transformations  in
Business & Economics

Migration Management in Polish Economy: Risks and Benefits
Danuta Kopycinska, Patrycja Zwiech

ABSTRACT. Market economy, introduced in Poland in 1989, has changed all management systems to a large extent (the migration management system as well). Most of all, cross-border traffic regulations were subject to liberalization and everyone was given the right to travel abroad freely. However, freedom of mobility achieved by the Poles in the 1990’s was not tantamount to the possibility of taking up legal employment in any country. It was the integration of Poland into the European Union in 2004 as well as growing globalization that had radically changed the situation of Polish people taken the access to jobs in Europe and in the world into account. Employment restrictions removed consistently by particular EU-15 Member States (the developed ones) together with freedom of mobility have provided Polish people with new job opportunities and chance to improve their material situation.

The present article is aimed at analyzing economic migration of Polish people with special reference to temporary migration after Poland’s integration into the European Union. The following issues will be addressed:

• scale, countries of destination and characteristics of economic migration,
• situation of Polish migrants in labour markets of destination countries,
• motives behind migration,
• scale of migrants’ return and their situation in the Polish labour market,
• and finally benefits and risk of economic migration faced both by its participants and a given country.

KEYWORDS: migration, labour economics, geographic labour mobility, Poland.

JEL classification: O15, J01, J61, P2.