Poland''s Jobless Growth: A Temporary Cure?

Poland's post-communist economic performance has been generally good. However, for many years its growth was jobless, it exhibited very high unemployment rates and concomitantly made little progress in approaching the targets set for EU Member States under the Lisbon Strategy. Unexpectedly, in 2003 the country's labour market began to exhibit a new dynamism, with employment growing strongly and unemployment tumbling. This apparent improvement coincided with a liberalisation of its Labour Code. Unfortunately, the measures introduced to increase flexibility are seemingly at variance with the EU's Fixed-Term Work Directive and might need to be modified.