This "entrepreneurial gene" manifested itself in full force in 2024, when over 353,000 new companies were created in Poland. The country is also among the hardest-working nations in Europe in terms of average weekly working hours, reports the German „Business Insider“.
Polish workers are „hardworking, well-educated and highly qualified“, says Krzysztof Inglot, a labor market expert to the publication. According to him, this is the reason why they also progress quickly in the company hierarchy. Inglot believes that all this is due to the “entrepreneurial gene“, which was suppressed during the years of communist rule and can now manifest itself in full force.
Incomes are growing
Marcin Wojwodka, an expert in labor law, says that Poles can “move even mountains“ if they are motivated and see “the immediate effect of their actions“. And he is not talking about “the Polish plumber, who has become proverbial in Western Europe, but about the presence of courage and willingness to take risks. “Poles are able to grit their teeth, focus on the task at hand and take the shortest paths to achieve the desired result”, said Wojwodka, quoted by the German publication.
And the results are also good. The Swiss newspaper “Neue Zürcher Zeitung“reports that the average gross salary in Warsaw, which is the highest in the country, amounts to 10,150 zlotys (about 2,400 euros). According to the Statistical Office of Poland, the average salary in the country at the end of 2024 was just over 1,950 euros, which is about 10% more than the previous year.
Overall, wage growth in Poland has been outpacing inflation for years, the Swiss publication also writes - a fact that is due to stable economic growth, fueled by investment. The minimum wage is also growing rapidly, having doubled to 830 euros net in six years, the Swiss publication writes.
The standard of living is rising
All this has improved the standard of living of many Poles, we read further in the publication. However, significant differences in income are also observed in individual regions of the country. However, the value of the Gini coefficient, which measures social inequalities in society, in today's Poland is lower than the EU average. And since 2007, the difference between the highest and lowest incomes in Poland has been constantly narrowing, the NCC notes.
Nevertheless, differences by region are visible: in the eastern parts of the country, bordering the Russian Kaliningrad region, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine, incomes reach at most 70% of those in Central and Western Poland - for the same work. The highest salaries (over 10,000 zlotys, or about 2,300 euros) in several years are in Krakow and Warsaw.
The new government of Donald Tusk raised child benefits to 800 zlotys (about 190 euros) in 2024, and adults who have less than 1,010 zlotys (262 euros) per month are entitled to social assistance. According to official data, the share of Poles affected by poverty has decreased from 2.5 to 1.5 million in one year. With the change of government, the unemployment rate has also dropped from 6 to 5 percent. However, even in the rapidly modernizing Warsaw, there are still poor neighborhoods where average incomes are up to 30 percent lower than the national average, the NCC reports, citing data from the job search portal “Jooble“.
Three reasons for the growth of the Polish economy
According to some forecasts, the growth of the Polish GDP will reach 3.5% this year, while in 2024 it was 2.9 percent. Experts point to three main reasons for the growth of the Polish economy. First, Polish exporters are finding new niches in foreign markets and remain competitive, despite rising labor costs.
Second: Inflation in the country remained one of the lowest in the EU, despite the adverse effects of the energy crisis. Because the decline in real incomes was compensated by the state with the help of tax incentives and significant wage increases, explains „Business Insider“. As a result, domestic consumption remained high.
And third: relatively large public investments, partly financed with European funds, played the role of an additional catalyst for the economy.
Poland is developing faster than the rest of the EU
„Poland is developing faster than the countries of Western Europe, and the years in which this was not the case can be counted on the fingers of one hand, says economist Piotr Bartkiewicz to „Business „Insider“.