Immigrants won’t come back to Poland

"Gazeta Wyborcza" writes that as many as half of the Poles in Britain have no intention of coming home in the near future.

Emigration studies conducted for the first time ever show that their average monthly net wages amount to PLN 7.5 thousand (GBP 1.3 thousand).

A report "Polish Consumers in Great Britain and Ireland" was prepared by the ARC Market and Opinion Institute (ARC Rynek i Opinia) on the basis of questions addressing 1,389 people on aeroplanes, coaches and at airports in the UK and Ireland.

It is estimated that 1.5 million people have left Poland. Officially, 600 thousand are registered in the UK and 200 thousand in Ireland.

“Poles tend to settle in the British Isles, they earn good money, buy homes and bring their families. They improve their language skills and get promoted”, said Adam Czarnecki, Deputy Chairman of ARC Rynek i Opinia.

Typically, Poles are manual workers and labourers, they operate in the construction sector (20 per cent), restaurants (15 per cent) and hotels (11 per cent).

They average EUR 1,500-2,200 monthly after tax. The majority of Polish emigrants decide against going back home because of the discrepancy between the level of pay in Poland and the British Isles.

55 percent of Poles in the UK and 49 per cent in Ireland declare that they won’t go back home, at least not in 5-10 years.

The pollsters emphasise that a declaration to go back home in 5-10 years should not be treated as binding, because after such a long time, immigrants usually get assimilated, which makes their return to Poland very unlikely.

Link