Developing Public Employment Services for Economically Inactive People in Poland

The Commission will support the public employment services in Poland in building capacity and designing new labour market policy programmes to target Poland’s relatively large economically inactive population. Support is provided through the European Commission’s Technical Support Instrument and is delivered in cooperation with the OECD and four Regional Labour Offices in Poland (Gdansk, Krakow, Olsztyn, Opole).

Context

Despite Poland’s rapid economic growth over the past decades, the share of Poland’s population that is not economically active – i.e. neither employed nor unemployed – remains high. With Poland’s low level of unemployment and employers struggling to find suitable workers, the economically inactive represent untapped potential and could significantly contribute to increasing labour supply. Economic inactivity further prevents some population groups from reaching a higher standard of living and puts pressure on public finances, due to high social security expenditure. Most of the economically inactive population is not registered or otherwise connected with the public employment services and, therefore, is currently not supported by employment services and programmes.

Support delivered

The project will provide support to the beneficiary authorities through the following technical support measures:

• Analysis of the economically inactive population in Poland and recommendations regarding target groups among the economically inactive population;  
• Development of employer engagement strategies to facilitate the recruitment of disadvantaged groups;
• Proposal for labour market policies that can be implemented in Poland to activate its economically inactive population based on a stock-taking analysis of existing initiatives and stakeholder interviews in Poland, as well as good practices from other EU member states;
• Capacity building initiatives to enhance regional labour market information systems in Poland, including skills anticipation tools to inform training programmes; 
• Preparation of pilot labour market policy programmes targeting economically inactive individuals.

Results achieved

The project aims to achieve the following results:

• Improving the availability and quality of tools of public employment services in Poland to reach out and activate economically inactive persons;
• Building the capacity and expertise among public employment services in Poland to provide labour market services to economically inactive persons.