Survey data shows that more Poles are worried about losing their job, but overall, such fears remain subdued with only 14 percent of Poles believing that their jobs are under threat, according to the Randstad Job Market Monitor.
Still, this is the highest such index in the last 10 years, not counting the start of the pandemic (second quarter of 2020) when 16 percent of surveyed Poles feared being fired.
The latest poll from Monitor from December 2020 also proves that Poles’ evaluation of their perspectives for finding new employment have worsened. While such fear sentiments are still low given that 79 percent believe that they would find a new job in half a year, this is the lowest number since 2016 (by the end of 2019, 88 percent of Poles believed they would find new employment).
One of the lowest indexes in years is that only 55 percent of Poles have the expectation that they will find a job just as good as the current one, which is 16-percentage points fewer Poles than the prior year.
Not only are the moods of employees much worse than a year ago, they have also dropped compared to the third quarter (Q3) of 2020 when restrictions were loosened, which brought hopes for a swift overcoming of the pandemic crisis. Back then, merely 10 percent of Poles feared losing their jobs.
Those searching for new employment the most are hotel-restaurant industry workers, who are the most affected by the pandemic and who lost the largest number of jobs by the end of 2020. Moreover, the employment groups least certain of the stability of their current jobs are cashiers, retail employees and drivers. Retail employees in particular have significantly raised the average result in the question concerning changing employment in the last six months, with 23 percent changing employers.
Randstad spokesman Mateusz Żydek pointed out that loss of employment was the reason for changing jobs much more often in the fourth quarter of 2020 than in the third quarter – 34 percent in Q4 representing an 8-percentage point increase.
Monika Fedorczuk, job market expert for Lewiatan Confederation, underlined that the pandemic has also increased the diversification of the Polish job market. While some industries have even benefited from the new situation, such as professionals and those in the tech industry, many others, such as those in the hotel-restaurant industry, have found themselves in a crisis which will not pass quickly given the current epidemiological situation.
