Impact of Ukrainians refugees on the Polish economy

In 2014 Russia annexed Crimea to it's territory and invaded the Donbas area in Eastern Ukraine. Since then, the war has been raging in Ukraine at varying degrees of intensity, the prolonged war plus other reasons have created a worsening economic climate steady declining.

Even before the 24.2.22 onslaught Poland was home to many Ukrainan migrants working in various fields in the Polish economy.

There were more than 600,000 Ukrainian tax payers prior to 24.2.22, representing roughly 2,000,000 Ukrainians in Poland. The onslaught brought about an additional 4,500,000 refugees.

The attitude of the Polish government and the Polish population to that influx was very positive and warm. I visited the city of Lublin in eastern Poland during the middle of last march and found that all my friends who live in houses had at least one Ukrainians family residing with them. Ukrainian refugees have a workpermit in Poland and the children are included in the state education system.

Except for humanitarian reasons this warm welcome is rooted in some significant self interest. The birthrate in Poland is negative like the rest of Europe. Since joining the European market many Poles emigrated to the U.K, Germany and Ireland.

In ethnical terms the Ukrainians are very similar to Poles, their history is intertwined and the language is similar. An Ukrainian speaking his Language is understood by a Pole and vise verse. Therefore it is relatively easy for Ukrainians to be integrated into Polish society. The result from this increase in inhabitants is double fold:

It increases the participation in the work force and boosts the supply side and on the other hand increases consumption. The OECD projection for 2023 is that refugees will increase Polish GDP by 3.5%. There is also a political reason: Poland is pressured by the European commission to accept refugees from the middle east and Afganistan.

The official Polish answer was that relative to its population they have absorbed more refugees than any other European country.