Bartosz Marczuk made the statement in an interview with the state news agency PAP on Wednesday.
Marczuk, who is deputy CEO of the state-run Polish Development Fund (PFR), said: “Female refugees who fled Ukraine to Poland have found their feet in the Polish labour market. Most of them have found employment.”
Assessing the Polish government's policy to welcome refugees from Ukraine, Marczuk said: “Generally, the results are good. We have coped with this situation. The central government and the local authorities have made good decisions. We have coped with a large influx of refugees, also as human beings and as a community.”
Marczuk added that Poland’s wide-ranging support to Ukrainians escaping the Russian invasion of their country was designed to encourage them to eventually take up employment.
He told the PAP news agency: “We have offered assistance, but we have also opened up our labour market to refugees and allowed them to do business in Poland. We have also granted them access to education and healthcare. This has worked well.”
He also said: “At first we provided refugees with security and support, but with the assumption that they should then stand on their own two feet.”
'Poland currently hosting 950,000 refugees' from Ukraine war
Marczuk estimated that "Poland is currently hosting 950,000 refugees" from the Ukraine war.
He said: "According to our estimates, 60 to 70 percent of them are working, which makes for a very high employment rate.”
He added that “in 2022, refugees from Ukraine paid some PLN 4 billion (EUR 850,000) in taxes and social insurance contributions and the figure will rise to some PLN 6 billion (EUR 1.3 billion) in 2023.”
Marczuk also said in the interview that Ukrainian refugees "are mostly employed in simple jobs such as warehouse workers, cleaners and hotel helpers,” but "with time they will start landing more complex and high-paying positions, in line with their skills and education.”
Some 2.3 million Ukrainians in Poland in total
Meanwhile, Poland is also home to some 1.3 million Ukrainians who had settled in the country before Vladimir Putin’s invasion, meaning that the Ukrainian community in Poland now totals some 2.3 million, the PAP news agency reported.
Wednesday is day 308 of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, wpolityce.pl