Young graduates unemployment in Poland

Some voices claim that there are not enough jobs for young graduates in Poland and that the country is joining the elite of Europe’s unemployment leaders such as Portugal, Italy, and Spain. Others parry that work is abundant but there are not enough skilled workers to carry it out. They blame educational system and popularize the propaganda of a furniture manufacturer who is seeking ten carpenters but receives no applications. Whatever is your opinion, the result is much the same, i.e. growing unemployment. Firstly, high taxes is a factor hindering human resources expansion. Secondly, Poland’s industrial sector suffers lack of large manufacturers which evokes shortage of stable employers such as factories generating thousands of workplaces. Lastly, wrong educational system creates too much white-collar and too little blue-collar workforce.



We need carpenters not executives

Too high tax propels a vicious circle, it boosts the budget for a brief moment but ruins it on the long run by deterring legal employment thereafter. Having been promulgated as a result of a depleting budget, its beneficial aspect came quickly to an end. The government sought additional money in extra 1% of tax raise but on the long run they found consumption plunge and employers’ reluctance to hire new workforce. Graduates, on the other hand, finish university education every year regardless of joblessness. Something has gone terribly wrong, and high tax has not boosted neither the budget nor the economy, but instead it hampered development. In these circumstances graduates join the army of the unemployed and augment the rate of emigration.

That kind of unofficial economic banishment is due to lack of stable employment which used to be provided by large companies with factories. Lack of local manufacturers, however, is a remarkable achievement of Poland’s greatest economists and politicians. In a situation when people cannot procure themselves financial stability, they leave. Not everyone has the courage and necessary wherewithal to do so, therefore those who stay most likely are prone to perpetrating cons, scams, or crimes. People who are submissive enough work below breadline or in onerous conditions just to get by the crisis. Those, however, who grumble about contracts of commission should consider themselves lucky in comparison to those out of pocket and out of job. Among all, the most infuriating is the fact that despite all the hardship there are also crooked companies which use the naivety and desperate job hunting of fresh graduates to exploit them as free workforce. Under false pretences of job recruitment they assign tasks involving voluntary work such as compiling potential clients data bases or conducting assistance in job duties for a trial unpaid period. These tricks are symptomatic of the state of economy in Poland.

Go to universities,
you'll increase your career chances.

The reason to this could be, as many have pinpointed in the public media, the faulty educational system. Crooked entrepreneurs abuse unskilled workers who could well do the job beyond doubt despite a different profession. At the end of the trial period, however, they are thanked for the co-operation and wished success somewhere else, sometimes being paid a pittance to cheer them up. It also could be down to the government’s wrong policy of vocational schools promotion. The prevailing idea is that this educational sector is for imbeciles or utter wash-outs. In consequence, youth surge universities, which results in staggering statistics of two supervisors per one worker in the near future.

Whomever is to blame for the dire situation on the job market, the fact is that unemployment has grown to an alarming level. It could get more alarming if those Poles who left the country and have been working in gray area in UE or relocated for longer in search of jobs were included in the statistics. That could well reveal the unemployment rate comparable if not higher than that in Spain. Fortunately, without this calculation the nation can safely praise the government for cushioning actions against economic collapse and relatively stable unemployment rate. But praising is only a propaganda, this will not suffice to pay the bills. What is there to do in such a situation? Is there any way out?

Social disintegration in Poland

Polish national flag

In the wake of this year’s 1^st May assemblies it is essential to notice that the idea of people gathering in the name of common good has become merely an idea. Once a propaganda celebration day of the working class during the Soviet era now it more evokes an opportunity to organize mass protests against the economic crisis and the ways in which the government has failed to deal with it. Protests, however, remain only temporary upheavals in which people manifest their individual misfortune, joblessness, and disenchantment with politicians. The cause of alarm is good but the voice raising the alarm is not unanimous. It is rather an individual wailing in crowded masses which will subside when the individual finds improvement. The improvement for society, however, will not come unless the whole society unconditionally unites and simply starts taking care of each other regardless of individuals’ status or their improvement progress. The division in the least embodies sole political preferences differences, nor does it depend on Smoleńsk calamities as a truce-hampering factor. Whatever individual’s beliefs are, the fundamental reason for the discord is extensive social disintegration which has been built gradually into people’s lives since their conception.

Bartłomiej Bonk, a bronze medalist of London Olympics 2012 

From the very beginning in many a case infant’s well-being has to be paid for by issuing surgeon’s extra gratification for their good will to conduct caesarean section. More commonly this phenomenon is called bribery. Obviously, voices against caesarean section bring the importance of giving birth naturally to the fore, slamming caesarean practice as detrimental to child’s strength and development in the future.  The tragic events of Nov 2012 in the Bonk family are exemplary, however, of what happens when you shun greasing the palm. To remind the unaware, in Poland health care is free of charge, because it is financed from taxpayers’ money, so additional payments for rudimentary treatment is redundant graft. Demanding and/or receiving gratification for the sake of a newly born human life is the first encounter of the phenomenon of society’s disintegration driven by greed and selfishness, and sometimes spiteful malice. A public health care representative driven by self-interest and disrespecting a new life being born to society, potential future workforce and a taxpayer constituting for pensions of the medical representative’s generation, blots the picture of united society. 

Ultimately, parents of a newly born child learn that they can count merely on themselves and that public institutions are there for formal reasons but they do not exhibit any pro-family policy. As a result, it seems that there is no preoccupation about the future of Poland and its society. Over two decades of democracy and capitalism has created a situation comparable to Homo homini lupus est. And its repercussions cannot be altered from day to day, moreover, the current state of affairs is what older generations strived for ardently ousting communism.  If health care system is not reliable and its representatives demand additional money from citizens, perhaps it would be better to leave the tax money in taxpayers’ pockets instead of squandering it inefficiently and let people decide on their own which service they choose. That is a different issue which would leave throngs without access to health care. Sadly, however, when the budged is being wasted, private money is being taken care of.  In consequence, parents nurture their child instilling values adequate to the existing reality. One insidious example of the above is when children are being scolded for tarnishing iPhone’s screen but they miss parallel reprimand when they have impaired their peers, their good name, or their belongings. A rather petty matter, prima facie, but how emphatically it champions selfishness and egoism over other people and their feelings.

            Under the influence of this sort of values, it is not difficult to imagine the inevitable adulthood repercussions. When asking a favor, people feel obliged to return it otherwise they feel guilty of having something without proper remuneration. It is like a trade or barter, so even a favor cannot be a non-profit phenomenon, hence it has to be duly dealt with for the sake of good conscience. Disappointed with the above altruists could voice their disagreement claiming that well-bred people have some sense of decorum which is devoid of that kind of behavior. The statement, however, often seems to be easily uttered from the armchair but in practice society gets more and more disintegrated. For instance, when a neighboring gate’s lock unleashes rattling sounds evoking bolt wrenching, out of the sudden it turns out it is too dark and too late an hour to pop out and do the rudimentary check-up even under the pretences of fresh air respiration. Besides, it could well be the neighbor coming home late at night, slightly pickled and unwilling to be talked to, and the encounter could only compromise his good name. This neighbor could have well installed CCTV cameras and all the above is pointless. Thus favors have become challenging or even awkward. It is easier then to recourse to technological progress and refrain from personal involvement. Analogically, it is easier to post a comment on facebook rather than pop in for a cup of coffee. 

            In this sense people believe they stay in touch with each other and they resent it when others tell them they do not. Obviously people who use social networks are not solely responsible for social disintegration. Many factors add up including, as mentioned above, upbringing, the influence of corrupt people, and prevailing indifference towards other human beings. The outcome is imminent reclusiveness and a promise of technological progress, covering a better parallel life on online discussion threads. Technology takes over personal relations which is a great opportunity for technocrats and plutocrats to retain their reins over the unaffiliated masses that can be easily traced  under online surveillance. The remedy to this breakage in social interactions is rejuvenation of social bonds – meeting each other for the purpose of enjoying the time sent together, trusting each other, exercising good will, non-profit attitude, and exhibit less money-oriented calculations. Also spending time on sports and outdoor events is recommended to unite all and sundry.

Oil price hike

How much more aggravation people can bear is what the plutocrats, the oil tycoons are about to test. Prices are rising steadily over the speculation of nuclear conflict in the Mid East. Iran’s nuclear program spurs Israel’s qualms. Simultaneously, global economy giants such as China or India are haggling over a discount for Iranian oil in light of the recent sanctions on Iran. Sanctions though in effect, seem to have their enforcement lingering. Hence, the US have left their option open and may follow suit ripping off Iran on prices consequently. In light of the above why on earth are we to pay more day after day while they are buying the crude for lowered prices?

Billy Green Bush and Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces (1970)

Weak economy is their imminent response. Yeah, when the economy sucks you can get away with any shit. Blame it on the deteriorating financial circumstances and this cannot yield any media caveat. White collars need your money to stabilize the economy.

When crippled economy argument needs backing you hear about the conflict. Independent Iran is now the center of this mayhem. Having been left with nuclear facilities built by the US agencies during the cold war, they have as an independent country a legitimate right to develop their technology – US legacy in this case. Israel fears that atrocities they have caused in Gaza and West Bank may sooner or later have its backlash in the Mid East. The threat of would-be shrinking oil supplies prompts oil prices surge.

To make your mouth shut, they frighten you with the nuclear disaster. Be docile or we all gonna perish. If one country nuked the other, the repercussions could be overwhelming for half of the globe.

At the end of the day, paying more for fuel on a gas station is supposed to heal the crippled economy and miraculously save the world from nuclear disaster. It’s not that plutocracy is lining up their pockets, they are actually saving us from human disaster. Shan’t you obey, take it to the streets. Mind you, you have to be quick or the streets might have been swept away.