Last year went down as the most difficult for the labor market since the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. The number of reported collective layoffs exceeded 97,600, marking the highest figure in over a dozen years. This is three times more than the year before, clearly illustrating the scale of the problem, reports Rzeczpospolita.
Shocking data
The newspaper emphasizes that such a high figure resulted both from strategic decisions made by large enterprises and from the worsening situation in certain sectors of the economy. Rising operating costs, restructuring processes, and organizational changes contributed to a wave of job cuts.
A significant impact on the statistics came from the actions of Poczta Polska, which, while planning changes to its pay regulations, filed notices for more than 51,000 collective “amending dismissals” (termination notices combined with proposed changes to employment terms). This decision had the greatest influence on the record-breaking level of the data.
At the same time, Rzeczpospolita notes that even without including this company, the scale of layoffs remained very high. “But even without it, layoffs affecting 46,000 people were reported in 2005,” the paper points out.
Recognizable brands and large enterprises were behind the employment reductions, including PKP Cargo, Black Red White, Beko, Henkel, and Eko-Okna.
Collective layoffs in shared services centers, which affected cities such as Kraków, also resonated widely. Companies carrying out workforce reductions there included Fujitsu Technology Solutions, HSBC, Heineken, and Shell.