Are the Poles petering out?

by Kate Pritchard - Friday, 29th February 2008 - (1) comment - Business comment

Latest government stats would have you believe that the wave of Polish immigration is finally receding. Entrepreneur Steven Street thinks that’s a load of old tosh.

“Over 70 per cent of job seekers on our books are from Eastern Europe,” says the founder of Bradford-based Relay Recruitment. “And that’s been the case for the past three years.”

Street ditched his job at Pertemps to set up his own Bradford-based recruitment company in 1996. His firm specialises in four main areas: commercial; logistics; engineering; and industrial, and places around 400-800 candidates into temporary work each day.

While he hasn’t seen a dip in the number of Poles applying for jobs, Street does admit that the calibre of these immigrants is waning.

“The first wave of Polish immigrants arrived on these shores three years ago. They were typically graduates from Warsaw or Gdansk, they were highly skilled and they spoke fluent English.”

“Now we’re seeing immigrants from more rural parts of Poland who have only a basic grasp of the English language.”

To tackle the problem, Street offers all of his Eastern European candidates an ESOL (English for Speakers of other Languages) course, which is subsidised by the government.

He’s also hired a Polish national, Mariusz Szak, to act as an Eastern European specialist, helping with translation and advising foreign job seekers on issues such as employment law and immigration regulations.

And there’s still plenty of competition between businesses looking to recruit hard-working Poles. “The Polish government is trying to pull nationals back into the country. Meanwhile, companies such as Hallmark and Cadbury’s have set up factories out there. If UK businesses want to hire Eastern European workers, they’re going to have to compete for them.”

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1 Comments

March 03, 2008 8:09am
Michael Dembinski Says:

Tosh it isn't. The number of Poles registered with the WRS in Q4 2007 is down over 40% compared to Q4 2006. One simple reason - the weak pound and strong zloty. When Poland joined the EU, a pound cost 7.15 zlotys, on Friday a pound was a mere 4.59.That's a 35% fall. So all those Polish workers remitting money home are sending their families one-third less having worked the same hours. At the same time Poland's economy is booming (6.5% GDP growth last year), wages are rising (11.5% year on year) and unemployment in the big cities is between 3%-5%. It no longer makes economic sense to work in the UK.