The study carried out by the National Bank of Poland is based on a survey of Polish economic migrants in Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Norway.

The analytical publication depicts the scale of potential decisions by migrant workers to return to Poland, a labour market expert from the Polish Economic Institute, Andrzej Kubisiak, said.

The bank said: “The study showed that record low unemployment in Poland has limited the number of new migrants leaving for the main migration destinations from the past, such as Great Britain and Germany, although new niche directions, such as Norway, have appeared.”

The bank added: “Still, the most important motivation for moving abroad and staying there are net salaries, whose medians (middle salaries) abroad are nominally about twice as high as in Poland, and dominants (the most common salaries) are 2.0-3.6 times higher than in Poland.”

According to Kubisiak, external factors could prompt expat Poles to return to their native country. He said that, for example, an uncontrolled Brexit could lead to an economic slowdown in Britain, which “in practice could mean a hike in unemployment rates and a greater outflow of economic migrants from the country.”

Kubisiak added that a similar situation occurred during the financial crisis in 2008-2010, when many migrants returned to Poland from Ireland and the United Kingdom.

(aba/gs)

Source: PAP