Polish construction companies are increasingly short of labour. According to data just released by the Main Statistical Office for January this year, as many as 59 percent of the country’s construction industry entrepreneurs consider the acute shortage of labour as the main barrier in their operations. It is estimated that from 100.000 to 150.000 construction workers of different specialities are urgently needed in this country at once.

Ever more building companies have applied to provincial governors for permission to employ foreigners. J.W. Construction, a major Polish construction company already employs workers from such far away places as Mongolia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan as well as Belarus, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria. The company has applied for permission to bring in and hire workers from Mexico and China in May.

One reason for shortage of construction labour is attributed to the high emigration of Polish building workers abroad, notably to EU countries. Polish construction workers go abroad for economic reasons.

Admittedly, wages in the Polish building sector have been rising fast in recent years and months, (at the fastest rate in the whole economy) but are still three up to five times lower than those which Polish construction workers can earn abroad.

Professor Zofia Bolkowska from the University of Management and Law in Poland predicts that this deficit of labour may soon increase even more sharply soon as a vast construction programme is starting off throughout the country of roads and motorways, sport stadiums, hotels and numerous other facilities in the run up to EURO 2012 to be held in Poland and Ukraine, polishmarket reported.