Polish unemployment up to 6.5% in January: labour ministry

Poland’s unemployment rate rose by 0.3 percentage points to 6.5 percent in January, the country’s labour ministry has estimated.

Photo:

PAP/Wojciech Pacewicz

There were around 1,089,600 people without jobs across the nation at the end of January, up by 43,200 from a month earlier, according to the Polish labour ministry.

Szacowana przez MRPiT stopa bezrobocia rejestrowanego wyniosła w styczniu 6,5%. pic.twitter.com/rGFihLyDtT

— Ministerstwo Rozwoju, Pracy i Technologii (@MRPiT_GOV_PL) February 4, 2021

The state-run Central Statistical Office (GUS) reported last week that the Polish jobless rate inched up to 6.2 percent in December, from 6.1 percent in November.

Meanwhile, the European Union’s Eurostat statistics agency, which uses a different methodology, estimated this week that unemployment in Poland was a modest 3.3 percent in December, the second-lowest rate in the 27-nation bloc.

The Polish Prime Minister’s Office has said that some 6 million jobs have been saved throughout the country thanks to measures including a massive relief and stimulus package that aims to shield the economy from the coronavirus.

President Andrzej Duda last week signed into law Poland’s budget for 2021, which expects the country's unemployment rate to rise to 7.5 percent by the end of this year, from 6.2 percent at the end of 2020.

(gs/pk)

Source: IAR, PAP