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February 24, 2022 Russia launched an unprovoked military aggression by invading Ukraine. The EU responded by introducing sanctions against Russia and offering humanitarian support to people fleeing Ukraine. Member States and local communities have engaged in assisting people displaced from Ukraine, taking in more than 4.5 million people fleeing the invasion.

 

EU Member States have for the first time activated by Council Decision Directive 2001/55/EC of 20 July 2001 - a Directive on minimum standards for granting temporary protection in the event of a mass influx of displaced persons and measures promoting a balance of efforts between Member States in receiving such persons and its consequences, in short the Temporary Protection Directive.

 

The Temporary Protection Directive was activated by the EU two weeks after the invasion, on 4 March 2022; it allows all persons displaced from Ukraine to settle in the EU. It provides access rights to housing, the labour market, medical assistance, education and social assistance. It should be stressed that access to the labour market for Ukrainian citizens concerns all Member States.

 

The regulations that appeared in Poland, which are a response to the situation, among others, radically modified the rules of access of Ukrainian citizens to the Polish labor market.

 

May 29, 2023 The President of the Republic of Poland signed the Act of 14 April 2023 on changing the names of universities of state services supervised by the minister competent for internal affairs, amending the Act on the Police, the Act on the Border Guard, the Act on the State Fire Service and certain other acts.

 

Article 12 of this Act provides, m.in, for amendments to the Act of 12 March 2022 on assistance to Ukrainian citizens in connection with an armed conflict on the territory of that country, consisting in an extension until 4 March 2024. legalization of stay of Ukrainian citizens on the territory of the Republic of Poland.

 

Therefore, the provisions on access to the labour market on the basis of notification will continue to apply.

 

What is notification hiring?

As a rule, in order to be employed in Poland, a foreigner should have a valid residence permit (e.g. visa, residence card) entitling him to work in the Republic of Poland and a work permit. In order to simplify the procedure of employing Ukrainian citizens who have massively crossed the Polish eastern border since the outbreak of war on February 24, 2022, a provision has been introduced that allows Ukrainians to be entrusted with work on the basis of a notification to the labor office. This applies to every citizen of Ukraine, not only those who came to Polish after the outbreak of war.

 

According to the provisions of the special law, the employer may immediately employ a citizen of Ukraine who legally resides in Poland and notify the labor office within 14 days of starting work. What is crucial, an employee from Ukraine employed on the basis of a notification to the district labor office can freely change the employer.

 

Let's look at the general picture of the Polish labor market in the context of the presence of foreigners on it.

 

In 2022, a decrease in the number of documents admitting foreigners to the Polish employment market was observed. According to the Ministry of Family and Social Policy, there are several reasons for this phenomenon. This is due to: the war behind the Polish eastern border and the introduction of legal solutions enabling Ukrainian citizens to work in Poland on the basis of notification, another factor is the extension of the period of performing professional duties by people from other countries on the basis of a declaration on entrusting work to a foreigner to 24 months (regulations introduced on January 29, 2022). Another factor is the exclusion of Russian citizens from the simplified procedure on 27 October 2022.

 

However, the decrease in the number of issued documents enabling employment in Poland does not mean that fewer people from abroad are professionally active in our country. ZUS data shows a significant increase in the group of foreigners registered for social insurance, which at the end of 2022 reached 1 million 63 thousand and this result was about 188 thousand higher than at the beginning of 2021.

 

And here there is a need to make greater use of Norwegian experience in the field of participation of social partners in the process of tripartite creation of public policies. After all, Poland is facing the process of creating a target model of employing foreigners, which will have to take into account the conditions on the labor market (related to labor shortages or the consequences of demographic change). It will also be necessary to take into account the experience that will result from the rules of work based on notifications (as already indicated, at the moment the work system based on notifications will operate at least until March 4, 2024).

 

As we know, the act on the employment of foreigners is currently being processed (the bill has not yet been sent to the Sejm). The new law on the employment of foreigners would come into force on 1 January 2024. From the perspective of employers, the most important proposed solutions are the abolition/limitation of the labour market test and the digitalisation of work permit procedures.

 

This is, of course, part of a larger process of digitalisation of the entire public administration. The idea is to eliminate the difficulties associated with paper submission of applications.

 

Labour market test - A compromise solution was finally introduced. If the situation on a given local labour market is difficult, the minister competent for labour will be able to introduce an obligation for starosts to issue a list of occupations and types of work in which foreigners will not be granted permits.

 

Important and important is also the provision of the bill, according to which it is obligatory to refuse to issue a permit if the employing entity:

• fails to pay social security contributions, health insurance, the Labour Fund, the Guaranteed Employee Benefits Fund, the Bridge Pension Fund and the Solidarity Fund;
• fails to comply with the obligation to pay farmers' social security contributions;
• fails to comply with the obligation to register employees or other persons covered by compulsory social insurance for social insurance;
• is in arrears with the payment of taxes.

 

This solution is aimed at protecting foreigners from unreliable employers, and at the same time mobilizing entities wishing to acquire foreigner employees from the market to meet all obligations towards public law authorities. Time will tell whether the indicated bill will become a binding act – regardless of this, it can be argued that it is necessary to involve trade unions and employers' organizations in creating a target model of employing foreigners in Poland.