Transformations  in
Business & Economics

FUTURE TRENDS OF LABOUR MARKET POLARISATION IN POLAND. THE PERSPECTIVE OF 2025⁴
Artur Gajdos, Lukasz Arendt, Adam P. Balcerzak, Michal Bernard Pietrzak

ABSTRACT. The paper focuses on changes in the occupational and skills structure of the employment in Poland. It elaborates on the drivers of these changes - from technical change and educational upgrading to institutional reforms - putting much attention to the hypothesis of labour market polarisation. The main empirical objective of the paper is to forecast structural changes on the Polish labour market and to verify if they follow the Routinisation-Biased Technical Change hypothesis. Therefore, the paper presents the future developments in labour demand, based on the employment forecast by occupational groups and skills till 2025. Employment forecasts at the national level were developed within the POLMOD model, which consists of two sub-models: macroeconomic and the labour market model. From the policy-making perspective, the paper comments on new challenges and possible tensions that may have place within some segments of the Polish labour market, resulting from the mismatch between skills demand and supply. Our paper contributes to the existing literature in two ways. Firstly, the research studies on labour market polarisation in developing countries (including CEE region) are rather scarce - we are filling this gap. Secondly, we used macromodelling approach to present and discuss future developments in the demand-driven occupational structure of employment. Although we analyse labour market changes in Poland, the results may be, to a large extent, considered as potential development patterns for labour markets in Central and Eastern European Countries .

KEYWORDS:  labour market polarisation, occupational skills, casual model.

JEL classification:  E24, C51.

³ Acknowledgment: The current contribution is related to the task "Forecast of the demand for labor in the cross-section of occupational groups until 2050", (number 7/ZP/2020), within the project "The System of Polish Labour Market Forecasting" which was financed under: Operational Program Knowledge Education Development, priority: II. Effective public policies for the labor market, economy and education, task: 2.4 Modernization of public and non-public employment services and their better adapting them to the needs of the labor market".