The current financial perspective envisages that in the next 6 years 252 billion Euro will come to Poland, in order to provide support for young unemployed people. These funds should be used to reduce the gap between employers and graduates whose qualifications do not meet the requirements of the market.
We will not build a competitive economy based on cheap labour force, comments Paweł Orłowski, deputy minister of infrastructure and development. We often win because labour costs in Poland are lower, but this is the so-called middle income trap. This is not a factor which will cause our sustainable competitiveness, he adds.
For this reason, the government plans to develop its support for research and development works and innovation. An important factor is also adjusting the graduates’ qualifications to the contemporary labour market. We have to provide young people with good working conditions in Poland, but also with appropriate qualifications, which will enable to make use of them on the labour market. There is a gap between labour market and the unemployed, but also between them and vacancies which are still present in Poland. So, the key to the issue is that young people, also graduates, should have qualifications which will correspond to the employers’ needs, explains Paweł Orłowski.
According to the data of Eurostat, the situation of young, unemployed people in Poland does not look optimistic. Last November, it reached the level of 27.6 % (among people under 25 years), whereas for instance in Germany it amounts to 7.5 %. To change this situation, from 2014 to 2020, the European Social Fund plans to strengthen the connections between education and the employers’ needs. Within the framework of the entire European Union budget, about billion Euro will come to Poland, in order to support the unemployed youth.
We joined the European Union and struggled for the access to labour markets also in other countries. But it is also a huge problem, because we want all young people to remain in the country. A number of factors influences the situation, such as access to housing, to good social infrastructure, to kindergartens and nursery schools, says the deputy minister.
If we want young people to stay in Poland or to come back here after gaining experience abroad, we have to provide them with the possibility of obtaining the so-called hard skills, which will enable them to find work. This is what we aim at. Often, young people go abroad, but not to work in advanced jobs, they do not make use of all their competences, emphasises Paweł Orłowski.