Ukrainians more and more often decide to set up companies in Poland. Since the beginning of this year, they have established over 10,000 of them, and September data shows that they are responsible for over 8 percent of the newly registered business activities. In addition, most of them are companies in industries in which we face shortages of employees.
Exactly 10,207 since the beginning of the year, so many companies were established by the Ukrainians in Poland. The vast majority of them, 9829 after March 1, 2022, show the data from the CEIDIG register, analysed by experts of the Polish Economic Institute.
Proof that Ukrainians link the future with Poland
– The data clearly shows that the number of new companies established by people from Ukraine is increasing, and the increase is abrupt. Just look at the fact that in January there were 188 of them, and in September as many as 2273 – tells us Dr. Katarzyna Dębkowska, head of the economic foresight team at the Polish Economic Institute. As she adds, we can talk about a permanent trend, not a short-term effect of the war.
– Data from September are crucial because they show that the trend continues. Why is this month so important? Due to the arrangement of the school year calendar, we can assume that if someone stayed in Poland until September, they sent their children to school here, and this is an important decision from the point of view of choosing their home centre. If we add to this the decision to set up a company, i.e. the choice of the form of earning money and securing a source of income, then we can assume that these people plan their lives with Poland for longer – explains the expert.
Jumping growth
Absolute numbers do not fully reflect the scale of how Ukrainian entrepreneurs contribute to the Polish economy. If we compare the monthly numbers of their businesses with the total number of registered enterprises , it turns out that their share has increased from 0.6% in January up to 7 percent.
in September. However, if we remove companies and cooperatives from this collection, we will see that in January Ukrainians accounted for 0.8 percent of natural persons registering a business, in order to constitute almost 8.5 percent in September. This means that almost every tenth company established in the previous month was founded by a citizen of Ukraine.
The share of Ukrainian enterprises in the total of all companies that have been established in Poland since the beginning of the year has reached 5%. The Polish Economic Institute is preparing a report on how Ukrainians undertake business activities in Poland, which will also include companies.
Support in industries where Poland have shortages
Importantly, the data prepared by PIE shows that 59 percent of all companies founded by Ukrainian citizens were run by men, and 41 percent by women. For comparison, in the case of “Polish” companies, women lead 36 percent. registered companies.
Thus, it is difficult to say that this is a wave of companies established by refugees, because the PESEL register clearly shows that the majority of people who have received this status are women (men account for only about 9%). This may constitute another evidence supporting the thesis that people setting up business in Poland want to stay in our country for longer.
Every fourth of over 10,000 of the described companies were involved in construction – mainly in the section “performance of other construction finishing works” another 16 percent. it indicated “Information and Communication” as its main area of activity.
If we delve into the exact sections, it turns out that most of them offer programming services or IT consulting, and Polish companies are already competing globally for employees in this industry.
Among the sectors in which Poland has a shortage of hands, it is also worth mentioning “Transport and warehouse management” (7 percent of over 10,000 companies). Interestingly, these are not only registered taxis, but also companies that transport goods by road.
A significant share is also “repair of motor vehicles, including motorcycles”, i.e. an industry where, despite the possibility of earning an earnings of 10 thousand PLN net (the average salary in September in Poland amounted to PLN 6566 gross, i.e. approx. PLN 4.7 thousand net – ed.), employers complain about the lack of employees.
Not only entrepreneurs
The data on the companies established by Ukrainians supplement the data on the economic activity of refugees from Ukraine , known for several months . Data from the PESEL register and the Ministry of Family and Social Policy show that most people with refugee status work legally. The latest official data from the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy said that over 420,000 people were employed. with approx. 540 thousand people of working age.
In turn, according to the data of the Social Insurance Institution, at the end of September, there were 1 million 45 thousand foreigners subject to retirement and disability insurance, i.e. working full-time, under contract or on their own account. 139.744 thou. 388 of them were citizens of Ukraine. For comparison, at the end of January it was 871,000, respectively. 559 foreigners, including 620,771 Ukrainians.
Some people in both statistics coincide, however, as practice has shown, the first work entrusted to refugees was often performed, inter alia, on the basis of contracts for a specific task, which meant that these people did not appear in the aforementioned ZUS statistics.
Source: BusinessInsider
