The Central Statistical Office (GUS) published its monthly labour-market bulletin on 24 February 2026, confirming that registered unemployment fell to 4.9 percent at the end of January – 0.2 points lower than a year earlier. The jobless total stands at 815 000, with the lowest rates in Wielkopolskie (2.6 %) and the highest in Podkarpackie (8.7 %).
![Poland’s January unemployment edges down to 4.9 % – officials eye foreign-worker quotas]()
For companies that need to source talent quickly, VisaHQ’s Poland portal (https://www.visahq.com/poland/) can streamline the immigration side of workforce planning by providing live updates on permit requirements, step-by-step checklists and estimated processing times, helping HR teams reduce delays and avoid costly compliance mistakes.
For global-mobility stakeholders the headline is labour scarcity. Manufacturing clusters around Poznań and Silesia report vacancy ratios above pre-pandemic peaks, particularly in electromechanical assembly and logistics. Employers are lobbying the Ministry of Family and Social Policy to raise annual quotas for short-term work permits (oświadczenia) issued to citizens of Moldova, Georgia and the Philippines, arguing that Ukrainian supply may tighten once the Special Act expires in 2027. Human-resources consultancies predict that processing times for standard work permits (zezwolenie A) could lengthen beyond the current 12-week average if provincial labour offices divert staff to implementing the new digital-only residence-permit system expected later this year. Companies are urged to front-load filings for Q3 projects and to budget for potential overtime premiums. The bulletin also shows that real wage growth slowed to 3.1 percent year-on-year, partly easing cost pressures for foreign assignments priced in euros. Nevertheless, accommodation costs in Warsaw remain 11 percent higher than a year ago, reinforcing the case for shorter rotational tours instead of permanent transfers. GUS will release a thematic study on foreign workers in April; until then, mobility managers can use today’s data as an early warning that talent competition is intensifying and that immigration-compliance lead-times need to be built into project schedules.
For companies that need to source talent quickly, VisaHQ’s Poland portal (https://www.visahq.com/poland/) can streamline the immigration side of workforce planning by providing live updates on permit requirements, step-by-step checklists and estimated processing times, helping HR teams reduce delays and avoid costly compliance mistakes.
For global-mobility stakeholders the headline is labour scarcity. Manufacturing clusters around Poznań and Silesia report vacancy ratios above pre-pandemic peaks, particularly in electromechanical assembly and logistics. Employers are lobbying the Ministry of Family and Social Policy to raise annual quotas for short-term work permits (oświadczenia) issued to citizens of Moldova, Georgia and the Philippines, arguing that Ukrainian supply may tighten once the Special Act expires in 2027. Human-resources consultancies predict that processing times for standard work permits (zezwolenie A) could lengthen beyond the current 12-week average if provincial labour offices divert staff to implementing the new digital-only residence-permit system expected later this year. Companies are urged to front-load filings for Q3 projects and to budget for potential overtime premiums. The bulletin also shows that real wage growth slowed to 3.1 percent year-on-year, partly easing cost pressures for foreign assignments priced in euros. Nevertheless, accommodation costs in Warsaw remain 11 percent higher than a year ago, reinforcing the case for shorter rotational tours instead of permanent transfers. GUS will release a thematic study on foreign workers in April; until then, mobility managers can use today’s data as an early warning that talent competition is intensifying and that immigration-compliance lead-times need to be built into project schedules.
