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Red-Hot Jobs Market Is Turning Up the Heat on Polish Central Bank

Red-Hot Jobs Market Is Turning Up the Heat on Polish Central Bank

Inflation pressures are rapidly spilling over to Poland’s labor market in a sign that the country’s central bank is far from being done with raising interest rates.

Two surveys from major recruiters showed a surge in companies that are planning to offer higher pay and increasingly struggling to find workers. This comes as Poland’s unemployment at 5.5% is near the lowest since the fall of communism more than three decades ago.

Red-Hot Jobs Market Is Turning Up the Heat on Polish Central Bank

A record 48% of Polish companies plan to increase wages in the the first half of 2022, a 27 percentage points increase from six months ago, according to a poll by recruiter Randstad NV. The share of companies looking to hire over those planning layoffs hasn’t been higher since 2008, according to a ManpowerGroup Inc. study.

What’s good news for workers is turning into a headache for employers and the central bank, which raised rates three times since October and signaled more could be in store in the face of the highest inflation in two decades. 

“Companies will increasingly compete with each other by offering higher wages,” Bank Pekao SA economists wrote in a note on Tuesday. “Such an economy can certainly bear the burden of higher interest rates.”

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.