Aside from the factors that ’push‘ Polish doctors from their country, such as low wages, Pentony points to the high demand for healthcare workers in the western EU countries: „Ironically, the healthcare systems in those countries have been under-resourced. In Western Europe there is an aging population issue so there is a bigger medical requirement. At the same time, owing to the success of the countries‘ economies over the past decades, people there have got more money to spend, hence the higher salary basis.” Employers in the UK and Ireland cannot find healthcare workers locally simply because they are not there.
No contest
The economic factor is decisive for Polish doctors considering a post abroad. Instead of earning a pitiful average wage of $450 (zł.1,439) a month in Poland, usually working shifts, Polish doctors are offered about Ł50 (zł.279) to Ł75 (zł.418) per hour if they work as general practitioners in London. On a permanent basis this comes to an attractive salary of Ł50,000 (zł.278,800) to Ł60,000 (zł.334,555) per year.
„A lot is being said about it but the scale is not that big,” says Kazimierz Kuberski, an Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy. According to Kuberski, the alarm about a brain-drain is especially exaggerated when it comes to the medical sector. „At the moment a very limited number of Polish medical workers is said to be working abroad. To compare, last year there were about 3,000 German doctors working in the UK. It has to be remembered that this is not only our specialty.”
The experience of companies recruiting medical specialists for work in the UK also proves that the threat of a brain drain in the Polish medical sector is over-dramatized. „This is an exaggeration. The number of Polish doctors working abroad is not that big. What is more, they go for short-term contracts and very often they come back, with experience and money. We live in the times of freedom of labor - it is natural,” says Piotr Jerzycki, president of Innovation Europe, a Polish company specializing in recruiting medical specialists for work in Great Britain. He also points to the phenomenon of ’weekend doctors‘ - Polish doctors working in the UK on the weekends for hourly earnings. „In the UK the patients‘ waiting list is very long. Polish doctors support the English ones,” adds Jerzycki.
The IT factor
Another group of workers highly valued by foreign employers is Poland‘s IT specialists, who now seem to be in short supply at home. „We see a substantial deficit of IT specialists, who, with their additional qualifications, would be an interesting group for employers,” says Dorota Kulesza, a manager at Randstad Infostaff, a unit within the Randstad group dealing with the recruitment of IT specialists.
The main difference between migrating Polish doctors and IT workers is the country of destination they choose. „We do not have any data concerning IT specialists, however, we think these skills are most likely exported outside Europe, to the US‘ Silicon Valley, and also to Asia,” admits Kuberski.
Samsung found it difficult finding the right people for the job when it set up its R&D center here, but not because they had all left the country. „This was not the problem of a shortage of IT specialists in Poland. We needed highly skilled IT specialists for a software that is unknown in Poland. I would not associate it with the flow of Polish IT workers abroad,” said Zofia Żelichowska, the human-resources manager at Samsung‘s R&D center. „We have enough specialists and engineers in Poland, which has been appreciated by many foreign companies setting up their R&D centers [here].”
High skills
So why do foreign employers want to hire Polish workers, especially as they cost the same as the local workforce, if not more, considering the costs charged by recruitment agencies? Christopher Thompson, political secretary at the British Embassy in Warsaw, comes back to the labor-shortage issue: „The British economy has 500,000 job vacancies, and Poles are meeting some of our labor market needs.”
Another reason is the high skill-level and impressive qualifications of Polish workers. „Our doctors have a very good reputation abroad. The health education system is on a high level in Poland. Besides they also have very good linguistic skills,” says Jerzycki. Although not supported by the most advanced technologies, the Polish education system seems to be appreciated abroad. „Polish doctors were educated according to the old system and concentrate more on the patient‘s humanity, they have a more holistic approach. The system of educating doctors in Western countries is mostly based on a narrow specialty,” says Kuberski.
When it comes to IT specialists, it is their flexibility and ability to come up with unconventional solutions that foreign companies appreciate. „Polish students receive international awards in website design, and Polish film makers working in advanced digital technologies are also widely recognized,” says Kuberski.
Significant contribution
Polish workers have contributed significantly to the economies of the countries that welcomed them. For example, the unemployment rate in Ireland has fallen by 0.2 percent alongside the huge influx of Poles. „The European Union is a common market and this is what it is supposed to be. Any economy that has opened up its doors for the workforce has been enhanced and grown because there is no restriction. Seventy-two to 74 percent of all employment within the EU is in services. To be able to handle that you need resources, and [that] is labor. And it does not matter if it is blue-collar, white-collar, high-skilled, medium-skilled or low-skilled. People are people and people are driving economies,” says Pentony.
Although the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy says that the brain drain is not a serious threat yet, Kuberski admits that the problem has to be considered as the scale of Polish labor migration is likely to increase. „The experience, salary and knowledge gained by Polish workers in foreign countries could be beneficial for Poland. Some of them invest money in their education and in the establishment of new businesses here, or in the improvement of their business assets,” Kuberski says.
Fortunately, there are indications that the workers do generally come back. „As we expected, people are not permanently emigrating but moving to and from, exploring options for themselves and building up many new experiences of modern European labor market flexibility,” says Thompson. „We do not fear brain drain. I would rather speak of brain gain. This is rather like a modern-style solidarity in action. Having built up skills and experience, people return to Poland.”
Agnieszka Barteczko
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