“Latin American migration to Poland is booming, bringing challenges and opportunities”
Poland’s unprecedented level of immigration in recent years…
…many are also coming from elsewhere, in particular Latin Americans, who last year received almost 45,000 work permits in Poland, over five times more than two years earlier. The vast majority are Colombians, with significant numbers also from Argentina and Venezuela…
ZUS data show that most Latin Americans (83.7%) are employed on precarious mandate contracts (umowa zlecenie in Polish) or agency contracts, with only 15.9% on standard employment contracts (umowa o pracę). For comparison, only 36.2% of all migrant workers have mandate contracts…
…Alejandra was once charged a 50% commission by the agency on her first monthly salary – which she discovered only with her first pay slip – while the company she worked for imposed financial penalties for absences, even those due to illness…
Ossowska confirms the existence of such practices, noting that some agencies charge workers between 1,000 and 1,500 zloty (€235-350) for job placement, which is illegal under Polish law, and that “absence penalties” are common.
She explains that disreputable businesses employ workers through various “creative” forms, such as registering them as students or monks in religious orders, in order to reduce mandatory employer contributions or circumvent labour law regulations…