Poles not tempted by work in Germany?
PR dla Zagranicy
John Beauchamp
31.05.2011 11:01
Since the opening of Germany’s borders for Polish workers at the beginning of May, media reports that there has been no mass wave of emigration as previously expected.
According to figures given in Tuesday’s Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, Poland’s largest temping agencies managed to arrange jobs for around 10,000 workers in Germany, around 50 percent of the expected number.
Language problems
However, while the number of workers wanting to head westward still remains high, yet the lack of qualifications still remains a barrier for finding work across the Oder.
“The chief barrier is language,” Lucyna Krolikowska from the NIKE Association of Polish Businesses in Berlin told the daily, adding that there was a case recently where two Polish hairdressers were fired because they could not speak German.
Similar language problems have arisen with drivers, car mechanics, as well as carers in old people’s homes.
“Out of 50 people wanting to work [in Germany], only 3-4 people speak the language fluently enough for our clients’ needs,” Katarzyna Szajca from the Club Silesius temping agency told Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
However, residents of Poland’s western regions close to the German border are finding work with little problems, as it is reported that many of them speak the language, with some having family across the border.
In Zielona Gora, which lies close to the border, some 2,500 people have found work across the Oder. (jb)