Consequences of German Market opening for Lower Silesia
EMPLOYMENT OFFICE OF LOWER SILESIA
May 1, 2011. German market fully opening for employees from Poland. In a public debate questions about future emigration of Polish workforce were tackled. Various opinions among experts, journalists and governments ranged from the moderate ones to the ones full of worries, forecasting local job markets’ drain, especially close to the border.
In the first couple of months after this even AGERON Polska provided reliable answers concerning real scope of social and economic changes in the region, caused by opening German market. Carrying out a research project for the Employment Office of Lower Silesia using classic methodology of social research we reacted quickly to changing reality and provided full analysis of social-economic changes while they lasted.
Within the project ‘Consequences of opening German markets for employees and employers from Lower Silesia’ we diagnosed real scale of employees’ drain, scope of changes in supply and demand for work and enforcement of phenomena such as salary pressure, modifications in recruitment requirements and decrease of unemployment. In our analysis we took into consideration differences in territories, segments of the labour market, gender and we applied approach integrating conditions on the macro, mezo and micro level – this way fulfilling all the standards of reliable analysis of labour market. We didn’t avoid difficult and sensitive aspects, such as changes in gray zone and issue of black economy.
Diagnostic analysis were complemented with short term and medium term forecasts (scenario method) of changes at the Lower Silesian labour and education market.
While working on this project we used and developed our experience in carrying out international research and foreign markets analysis. Taking into account perspective of German employers and employees, AGERON’s moderators carried out 39 individual in-depth interviews in Germany. Quantitative research covered over 180 German institutional respondents.
In the country our moderators carried out over 50 IDIs in the whole Lower Silesia region. Thanks to phone survey research among employers and employees we strengthened our skills in successful carrying out also exceptionally complex, long surveys requiring questionnaire.
Apart from results focused on the main research problem, our analysis allowed us to define areas where there is knowledge lacking and information gaps together with formulating recommendations how to overcome there. This way AGERON contributed significantly to creating standards of monitoring international labour and education mobility on the local markets within Lower Silesian Labour Market Observatory.
