This article is a part of Poland Unpacked. Weekly intelligence for decision-makers
Compared with the first quarter of 2025, the number of people in employment rose by 177,000. That translates into a solid annual increase of 1%. It is the fastest pace of growth since the start of 2022.
Interactive chart From a broader perspective, however, the number of people in work has remained broadly unchanged from four years ago. It is higher by just 15,000. In other words, the current increase merely makes up for losses recorded over the previous two years. It is no breakthrough.
Interactive chart Labor-market trends: in the short term...
More interesting are the trends that reveal how the number of people in work is changing across different categories. Relative to the first quarter of last year, I present them in the opening chart. In other words, the breakdown by category – age, gender, sector, employment status and working time – relates to the increase of 177,000 people in employment.
Interactive chart Several potentially interconnected developments stand out. First, the entire increase in employment over the period was driven by women (+2.3%). Moreover, relatively stronger growth was recorded in the public sector (+2.1%). Statistically, women are more likely to choose public-sector jobs, not least because they make it easier to balance work with other responsibilities. Another striking development is the sharp increase in part-time employment, which surged by as much as 11.1%.
It is impossible to say with certainty that women are behind the growing use of part-time work. GUS does not publish the data with that level of detail. Still, intuition points in that direction. Nor can it be ruled out that the public sector is leading these changes in the labor market. Though again, that is my own speculation. At the macro level, the effect would therefore imply a reduction in the total number of hours worked across the economy, even with the same number of people employed.
Another important trend is the increase in employment among the oldest working-age cohort in the GUS classification, namely people aged over 45. Employment also rose among those above retirement age. Year on year, the increases amounted to 2.8% and 9.5% respectively. Part of this reflects the ageing of Polish society. The labor-force participation rate rose by 1.4 percentage points year on year among the 45+ group and by 0.8 points among those aged 60/65+, though the increase among people aged 35-44 was similar at 1.1 points.
...and in the medium term
Are these trends more enduring? The chart below presents the same breakdown as before, but over a four-year period (relative to the first quarter of 2022). As already mentioned, the overall number of people in work remained almost unchanged during that time, rising by just 15,000.
Interactive chart The broader time horizon suggests that the trends described earlier are part of a longer-running shift. The number of women in employment increased by 2.6% over the period, while the number of men in work fell by 2%. Similar changes can be seen across age groups, as well as in part-time employment. Over the past four years, the number of people working part-time has risen by around 16%. Poland is therefore experiencing a quiet revolution. Over the longer term, these trends may also have been influenced by the immigration of women from Ukraine.
It is worth noting that the decline in the number of people employed in the private sector (-107,000) was entirely driven by a reduction in employment in individually owned farms (-304,000). In other words, employment in the private sector excluding that part of agriculture actually increased. This structural shift is beneficial and may help explain the strong gains in productivity per worker recorded in Poland in recent years. In my view, that change, too, has largely gone unnoticed.