Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena

CATHERINE SPIESER
be found, the number of people explicitly
unemployed was never significant, as few remained
without a job for long. 6 In that context,
the definition of unemployment was written
in the law only in 1989. The fact that such a
conception of unemployment was the only existing
one in the analyses of labour allocation
carried out before 1989 probably explains the
somewhat prolonged belief of many Polish analysts
and policy-makers that unemployment
was a natural side effect of transition that would
resolve itself through market mechanisms.
In 1989, the initial government proposal for
an unemployment benefit scheme forecasted a
moderate increase in the number of unemployed
(300 000). In reality, registered unemployment
jumped from 55,000 people (0.2%) to
1,125,000 (6.1%) within twelve months; more
than one million people became unemployed
in 1990 alone. The registered unemployment
rate increased steadily during the 1990s and
peaked at 20% in 2002-2003 (see table 2). By
2003, more than one in two registered jobseekers
had been without a paid job for more
than a year. The trend only reversed with EU
accession. In 2005, unemployment started to
decrease, which is explained both by the large
numbers of Poles who emigrated to other
EU countries, which had opened their labour
markets in 2004 (UK, Ireland and Sweden),
and to an increase in job creation in Poland
itself.
The Employment Act of 1989, revised in 1991, set
the basis for new labour market governance and
institutions compatible with a capitalist market
economy and the conditions of eligibility for
unemployment compensation. It introduced
an initially broad definition of unemployment,
which was subsequently restricted on several
occasions in later years. Unemployment grew
as a result of the combination of uncertain
economic conditions, wide-scale economic
restructuring, adaptation to a changing market
environment, hardening budget constraints on
large state-owned enterprises, and dismissals
becoming an option to adjust workforce thanks
to the changing governance of work.
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