The year 2016 is the 20th anniversary of Poland’s membership in the OECD. During this time, Poland has shown impressive economic growth and improvement in well-being. Poland was one of the few OECD countries in which growth remained positive during the financial crisis. While growth has rebounded from the abrupt slowdown in 2012-13, Poland’s low employment rate hinders prospects for future growth going forward. Like its peers in the OECD, Poland is grappling with how to create jobs in sufficient quantities and of sufficient quality to move towards a path of strong and resilient growth.

This review was undertaken by the Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED) Programme of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as part of a project undertaken in co-operation with the Ministry of Economic Development, and with the support of the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy. This project is part of the OECD LEED programme of work under the leadership of Sylvain Giguère.

The Local Job Creation project involves a series of country reviews in Australia, Belgium (Flanders), Canada, Czech Republic, France, Ireland, Israel, Italy (Autonomous Province of Trento), Korea, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States (California and Michigan). The key stages of each review are summarised in .

Since 2000, Poland has steadily caught up with the EU15 in terms of GDP-per-capita and is one of the few OECD countries where growth remained positive during the financial crisis. However, in 2012-13 the economy abruptly slowed down, and employment remains a major structural weakness. Poland has a particularly low employment rate, and ranks poorly compared to other OECD countries on measures of job quality, such as wages and overall job security.

This chapter provides an overview of Poland’s employment and skills system and the economic context. Poland was one of the few OECD countries where GDP growth remained positive during the financial crisis. While it experienced an abrupt slowdown in 2012, growth is now back on a solid path. Compared to other OECD countries, responsibility for labour market policies and vocational education and training are relatively decentralised, and important reforms have been implemented in both policy areas in recent years.

To better understand the role of the local level in contributing to job creation and productivity, this OECD review examined local activities in two Polish sub-regions: the city of Poznań and the Radomski sub-region. This chapter provides a labour market and economic overview of each region as well as the results from an OECD LEED statistical tool which looks at the relationship between skills supply and demand at the sub-regional level.

This chapter highlights findings from the Local Job Creation Dashboard in Poland. The findings are discussed through the four thematic areas of the OECD review: 1) better aligning policies and programmes to local economic development; 2) adding value through skills; 3) targeting policy to local employment sectors and investing in quality jobs; and 4) being inclusive.

Stimulating job creation at the local level requires integrated actions across employment, training, and economic development portfolios. Co-ordinated place-based policies can help workers find suitable jobs, while also contributing to demand by stimulating productivity. This requires policies which can be catered to the local level, up-to-date and accurate data, and integrated partnerships which leverage the efforts of stakeholders. This chapter outlines the key recommendations emerging from the review of local job creation policies in Poland.