Premier says no recession for Poland

According to available data household savings in Poland defined as the difference between a household's disposable income (mainly wages received, revenue of the self-employed and net property income) and its consumption (expenditures on goods and services) is declining Poland is almost on par with the USA at 4%. Poland may no be in recession although the people on the street are most certainly becoming lesser off year by year.

Also because of falling birthrate started in the mid-1990s a lot of classes were closed and many teachers got fired around Poland. I personally know 4 teachers in such a situation. A low birthrate (because of lack of money and because no hope for a better future) + the emigration should be a concern for the Polish government instead of pretending all is marvelous. Saying that Moldavia is doing worse than Poland is not reassuring; only Roumania and Bulgaria are doing worse than Poland in the UE. The Polish government are happy but the Poles are not.

Oh please. Poland has recently overtaken Hungary - a country that wasn't economically wrecked by the end of the 80's.


And yet again, that completely fails to take into account the large amount of money that exchanges hands without being declared.


Then perhaps, instead of whining about it, they should do something about it? There are certainly jobs out there, but of course, it requires moving for it.


Why should it be much of a concern? It lowers the unemployment rate and means the country is easier to manage.

I believe you are referring to the ' Shadow economy ' in every country there is a shadow economy albeit Eastern/Southern Europe is more active in this area than west.

Even taking into account the ' Shadow Economy ' which will become far smaller in the future when almost all money transactions are electronic,the savings per household in Poland are decreasing not increasing as the majority of Poles are lesser off in 2013.

Good to hear that.

Having spent most of my life in rural communities, I would say this statement is wide of the mark. At the age of 12 I was milking cows and generally helping out on the farms. Nearly 40 years ago. Over the next 10 years things changed dramatically. Hedges were removed to make fields bigger and bigger tractors, harvesters and a general improvement in the efficiency of machinery reduced the need for labour on farms except when seasonal harvests required. At the same time the middle class began their drift from the big cities in search of a better environment to bring up their children forcing up house prices. Big houses remained cheap in the early eighties in rural England but prohibitively expensive to run.

Now very few people work in farming daily. There isn't the work except seasonally and the supermarkets have driven prices at source so low that seasonal work is not financially viable unless you live in multi occupancy. Drive through Boston in Lincolnshire @ 5am to see the effect low prices and low wages have had. It must be tough in Poland, Lithuanian etc. if your desperate enough to stand out in all weathers in the vain hope your going to get chosen to work that day.


From what I hear from my partners friends in Poland, I believe you are correct. 82 hrs a week for 1200zlt/month and 5 mouths to feed. Ouch! Heard this last week. A couple of weeks ago someone we know borrowed 40,000zlt to pay off his mothers finance debts on 2000zlt a month income. Long time paying that one. Probably would have got less time for insuring her and throwing her off the balcony if he got caught. I find it amazing people on here refuse to accept there is abject poverty in Poland. I would suggest some broaden there social circles or open their eyes. It also seems the root of this evil is unscrupulous employers that pay low wages to avoid taxes and compensate with cash. It appears to happen everywhere. I do wonder how bigger businesses get away with this, but I guess as they are corrupt, then someone above is also corrupt.


When people can't afford to go out, they turn to other activities. Don't I just know it. Number 3 in January.

Hundreds of schools closing and 8-10,000 teaching jobs going says it all. It's far more financially attractive having a baby in the UK if your Polish. £500 bonus just for starters so the Polish mums tell us.

I'll second that.

@Ant63 and Milky: 100% ok with you and like you say, Ant63, foreigners in Poland should broaden their social circles. Those foreigners in Poland, 99% either expats or ESL "teachers" first of all because of their limited (if not any) knowledge of the Polish language are very restricted in their socialization. As they hang around only with very rich Poles that they meet through their work, their views about Poland are false. The Polish society is not made up of only rich people working for international companies, speaking English and often more languages and traveling abroad for pleasure; such people don't represent more than a very low %. Poland is not limited to beer drinking on the Krakow Rynek or fancy shops on Nowy Swiat, contrary to what a lot of PF members claim because they don't want to see real Poland.

(I am Polforeigner but could not register under this name and had to change).

Quite a generalisation. There are some people who've don't fit either category and have been here for decades, some living out in the sticks often in quite isolated places and some of us, when we're in Poland, speak only Polish because we don't mix with people who can speak English.

@Jon: at least those giving their opinion on non Polish sites.

That's maybe true.

Remember that there are people who've assimilated to whatever degree and are as qualified to give a good opinion on Poland as, say, a person born in Poland who's lived in the UK or US for 20 something years speaking about their adopted home.

I was once lucky enough to meet a lady born in the UK who'd lived in Poland since 1947 - much longer than most here who would describe themselves as Poles have lived there!

Also a mix of Neo-liberal mentality, Tory Brits, and their shock therapy translators.

Who are those people? There are very few posters on here living in Poland who don't have at least a reasonable command of the Polish language.

I'm also not sure why you're abusing ESL teachers when you are a French teacher yourself and therefore could be called an FSL teacher. (Mods, she has posted it in public before - I'll supply a link if you want)

Or claim to have. Knowledge of the Polish language here is very much self-assessed.


You don't know Poland, do you. You just know Polish Forums. Or more precisely personal information about posters on Polish Forums.

Perhaps try leaving your computer and get out and about more. And btw claiming knowledge of Polish on some expat internet forum is a very poor substitute for actually using Polish in the real world, that strange, bizarre and wholly unfamiliar place beyond your computer screen.

Some with even an excellent command of Polish.


Now the French community in Warsaw is even more Ghettoised than the Brits or Shermans.

I don't think anyone here claims to have a better understanding than they do, except perhaps one guy from America.


If you want to fight, take it elsewhere.

As for that piece of information, she posted it very publicly not so long ago.


How queer. I could have sworn that I use Polish every day in work due to working in a more-or-less monolingual company. Must have been dreaming.


Perhaps that explains the sneering attitude towards Poland among some of them.

Case of 'saying' rather than 'showing', isn't it.

Personally, I observe what people do rather than listen to what they say.

A life spent in front of a computer screen on English language forums boasting about your proficiency in Polish is hardly much of a substitute for actually using Polish IRL.


You fight with every new poster coming onto this forum. Just to let them know their place. That Polish Forums is 'Delphi's domain'.


And you can retrieve the quote from your index linked filling system, no doubt. Was the quote made on Polish Forums, or were you forced to visit other sites for additional research?


I'd just so love to be a 'fly on the wall' .....


Should I read the title of this thread to some of you or are you able to come back on topic by yourself?

I think they're winding you up. It's a common thing among Poles to pretend to be desperately poor - what they don't mention is that the rest of the money comes in a brown envelope once a month while they get 1200zl in their bank account.

I wouldn't believe a word from most Polish people about what they earn. I know one guy who claims to be poor because his business only earns 2500zl a month. What he doesn't mention to the vast majority of people is that many of his sales are done strictly off the record, due to the nature of his business.

A great example is in self employed tradesmen. How many willingly offer a faktura?

I'll third that. Anyone who believes otherwise simply doesn't know Poland.


You may be surprised to learn that the poor in Poland don't generally own businesses. :roll:

You may also be surprised to learn that the "poor" in Poland are often asset rich.

Indeed, I would be genuinely surprised to learn that. The kind of people who worked on the former collectivised farms, perhaps? Probably, because for many of the really poor, it simply isn't true.

And for those who do have assets, they are still 'poor'. They could always exchange their property for cash, and go and live where exactly?

ONE guy - I know about 50 people from Warszawa, Lublin, Olsztyn, Sandomierz, Gliwice, Szczecin, Rzeszów, Tyczyn, Zakopane - who's salary is about 1200 zł a month - and they are happy because they earn anything at all. Try to find a job if you are 50 or 50+... And my brother's student's in Rzeszów are happy if they could find jobs in Biedronka, Tesco or Jasionka airport...

And what did they do for most of their lives?

People who were content to rot away in a PRL factory don't deserve any more, and nor should they get more.

I think we all know that there were a significant amount of people in the PRL who were very happy with the way things were - they had a flat, a job that they couldn't be fired from for incompetence, they had their subsidised holidays and an existence that was predictable. Those people are the ones now crying and whining because they aren't rich - although they did nothing to get rich.


That means they were 30-40 when the system changed and they were in a perfect position to make something of themselves. No-one to blame but themselves - but then again, it's easier to blame everyone else than themselves, huh?


Means nothing, considering the large amounts of students who should be working in those places instead of "studying" some joke degrees.

Clearly you belong Victorian era with your attitudes to the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor.


Those who 'made it' during those times tended to be those already in a position of power - the former communist big-wigs.


What marketable skill have you got other than the ability to speak your own mother tongue?

What, other than your own arrogance and conceit, makes you any better than they are?

No, I belong in the modern era where success is earnt. There's no room in today's Poland for people who are happy to be lazy, incompetent and useless at work, and nor should there be. One of the worst crimes of the PRL was to create this mentality that it's completely acceptable to screw your employer in any way you can.


Plenty of others aged 50 something today made it too. The ones that did were the ones who did the best they could despite the PRL (and who didn't spend their days complaining about it, but rather trying to work the best they could within the system) - they then were 30-something and in the best possible position. They weren't "communist big-wigs", but rather people who had put themselves in a position during the PRL to make something of themselves afterwards.

But let's not forget that the PRL also trained a lot of people in hard skills. It always amazes me how many people who took early retirement are able to do things for a good price and quality in Poland.

Poland could go a long way by targeting those employers who abuse the self employment regulations. Anyone working in a job where they are told what to do and when by an employer is by nature not self employed.

You judge others as being responsible for their own misfortune.

If you count yourself as being one of the 'fortunate', then you must possess some 'virtue' or 'skill' denied to the 'undeserving poor'.

What 'skill', other than an ability to speak your native language, would that be?

That's right. Anyone in their late 20's/early 30's in 1990 in Poland who was healthy has only themselves to blame for the situation that they find themselves in now.

How many times do we hear "retired" people complaining, only to discover that they took sometimes very very early retirement by European standards?


I think the only skill that most successful people have is an ability to work hard without being irresponsible.

A great example can be seen in the trucking industry in Europe. Polish drivers are willing to go out in their truck for 4-6 weeks at a time, British truck drivers want to be home every weekend. Who gets the work?

I see. So the likes of Polish teachers and nurses have only themselves to blame for not being 'rich' by Western standards.

That's bullsh1t. Some people work hard all their lives and have little or nothing to show for it. Others get rich without necessarily working hard. Film stars and footballers are the world's most industrious inhabitants, whereas rickshaw drivers and peasant farmers are bone idle.

You don't live in the real world, do you, Delphi.

Who was talking about Western standards?

Teachers certainly only have themselves to blame - the progression to diploma level is very clear and most competent teachers (and quite a few incompetent ones) get there. Don't forget that teaching in Poland has long been the black sheep of professions, not least because of their multitude of rights that most workers don't have.


I don't call "working hard" being "spending 8 hours in the factory, 40 hours a week and doing nothing to develop yourself".


Football players and film stars tend to work bloody hard for it in industries that are ruthless on those that don't perform, not to mention the short career of football players.

I see. So Poles, in your opinion, should compare themselves with those in Third rather than First World nations. How characteristically arrogant of you.


Not everyone happens to be 'academic'. How well do you think you would do in a 'physical' job? I respect everyone irrespective of their education.


Aye, some work hard. Others, e.g. Paul Gascoigne, George Best, just happen to be 'gifted'. Some women are born beautiful, others not. All people are of equal value.