Anna Cieślak-Wróblewska: Poles prefer to work at home. That's good news, but not for everyone.

The reasons are easy to diagnose. First of all, unemployment has disappeared in Poland, and wages have risen significantly. And while you can still earn more in Western European countries, the differences are clearly narrowing. And sometimes, as recent studies show, the pay for summer jobs can actually be the same in Greece as in Poland.

Why Poles don't want to ride saxophones anymore

At the same time, the perception of working abroad is changing, and the myth of "big money" seems to be crumbling. The cost of living abroad is rising as rapidly as at home, and economic migrants, even seasonal ones, increasingly face discrimination.

However, assessing the consequences of this phenomenon may be more difficult. Admittedly, from an economic perspective, the fewer Poles leaving for work, the better. After years of brain and hand drain from the labor market, Poland is gaining the potential to retain valuable human resources. Another issue is that staffing shortages, due to an aging population, remain a challenge. Polish companies must, in any case, increasingly open up to workers from other parts of the world, primarily from Ukraine, but increasingly also from Asia and Africa.

What is our attitude towards immigrants?

History teaches us that rising wages and the general standard of living in a given country can, somewhat paradoxically, lead to a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment. When we feel our economic position is improving, we quickly forget the experiences of previous years, when we ourselves were chasing jobs around the world. Now, from the perspective of those more affluent, we begin to perceive new arrivals as a threat to their position, to jobs, to wages, and as a burden on social systems.

Poland, itself a country of emigration for years, is now becoming a destination for immigration. These are major economic and social challenges, and above all, a test for the political class. The state's primary responsibility is to prepare the conditions for integration, educate, and counteract stereotypes to avoid the mistakes made by some Western countries. Unfortunately, the government is currently failing this test.