Migration Flows and Labour Market in Poland

In the paper temporary migration flows are analyzed in conjunction with information on labour market gross flows. Gross migration flows were calculated on the base of the household survey that is conducted jointly with the LFS survey in Poland. The results indicate that the propensity to emigrate is higher for unemployed as compared with employed or non-participants. Moreover, after the EU accession these were employed and unemployed who experienced the most pronounced increase in the propensity to emigrate. The steady-state analysis of the gross labour market and migration flows delivers the estimate of the ratio of the temporary emigrants to the total population of Poland in the period 1994-2006. The ratio rose sharply after the EU accession from around 2% in 2002 to roughly 6% in 2006. Although, higher intensity of migration movements is unlikely to considerably bias the labour market figures like the unemployment rate and the activity rate, it may still lead to notable biases in the estimates of the labour productivity if emigration trends are not properly accounted for in estimates of the LFS population data