In 2024 in our country was born About 252,000 children. At the same time issued about 322,941 work permits for foreigners. This means that the number of fresh papers allowing foreigners to enter the labour marketplace was higher than the number of recently born citizens. This is not a one-off situation, according to available data, a akin proportion has been maintained since 2019.
More migrants arrive in Poland all year than children are born. The ranking of these figures creates strong emotions and provokes questions about the direction in which the state is heading. any commentators interpret this data as evidence of a systemic waiver of demographic recovery and replacing it with mass labour immigration. In their view, the state has ceased to treat fertility as a strategical precedence and the dominant paradigm has become a purely market-based approach: if there are no employees, they must be brought from abroad.
This problem includes various ruling teams – both the period of the regulation of Mateusz Morawiecki and Donald Tusk. In 2019 the difference between the number of work permits and the number of births was peculiarly clear. Critics point out that alternatively of creating unchangeable conditions for starting families – through economical security, taxation predictability, real support for young parents and the improvement of household infrastructure – the state focuses on short-term mitigation of staff shortages.
On the another hand, it should be noted that the Polish economy has developed in fresh years under conditions of deep shortage of workers. The ageing society, the emigration of any Poles after 2004 and the low fertility rate have led to structural labour shortages in many sectors – from construction to logistics to healthcare. In this perspective, labour migration is simply a tool that stabilises the labour market, sustaining economical growth and the public finances system.
The dispute so concerns not only numbers, but the doctrine of the state. Is the nation primarily a cultural and historical community whose sustainability requires active pronatallist policies? Should the modern state respond flexibly to the needs of the economy, complementing human resources shortages with migration? The public debate is increasingly afraid that maintaining for years a situation where the number of fresh workers from abroad exceeds the number of recently born citizens will lead to a permanent change in the social structure.
Demographic forecasts indicate a systematic decline in the number of Polish population in subsequent decades. In pessimistic scenarios, the population can decrease importantly over a three-generation perspective. This raises the question of a long-term strategy: should migration be a transitional solution or a sustainable component of the improvement model?
Without a comprehensive family-based policy – including unchangeable employment, accessible housing, social safety and real support for parents – it is hard to anticipate a reversal of demographic trends. At the same time, a complete closure to migration in a shortage of workers could consequence in economical slowdown and force on the pension system.
The discussion on the mass influx of economical migrants is not only a substance of statistics, but of strategical choice of the state model: whether long-term demographic recovery or current economical efficiency will be a priority. mostly abroad companies and corporations. It is thanks to them that the cultural change of Poland is increasing.
