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

THE POLITICS OF LABOUR MARKET ADJUST-
MENT IN POST-1989 POLAND
Table 2. Employment and unemployment in Poland (% of active population)
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
Registered
unemployment
rate
Employment
rate
(LFS)
6.1 11.4 14.3 16.4 16 14.9 13.2 10.3 10.4 13.1 15.1 17.5 20 20 19.0 17.6 14.8 11.2 9.5
n/a n/a 53.3 52.1 51 50.7 51.2 51.5 51 48 47.4 45.5 44.1 44 45.1 45.9 47.5 49.5 51
Source: employment services (data end of year) and labour force survey (Q4)
page 130
The introduction and erosion of the
unemployment benefit
In the early 1990s, policy-makers were
concerned that the surge of unemployment
and a temporary deterioration of economic
conditions could put regime change at
risk. An unemployment benefit was swiftly
introduced as the major instrument in view
of alleviating the consequence of losing one’s
job. While the government response included
both passive and active labour market policies,
the first largely prevailed. The Employment
Act, which became the Act on Employment and
Unemployment in 1991, established a network of
public employment offices, an unemployment
compensation scheme, a dedicated Labour
Fund, and limited active labour programmes 7 .
The Labour Fund, which served to
finance them, was relying primarily on
state subsidies (up to three-quarters
of the total) and, to a lesser extent, on
social contributions.
The first measures could appear generous
in the context. The level of benefit was
initially calculated on the basis of the last
remuneration and length of unemployment
with a starting level of 70% (within the limit
of the average wage) during the first three
months, subsequently falling but unlimited in
time. When a significant rise of unemployment
was expected, this was a generous and
costly scheme, which would quickly become
unsustainable. It is highly likely that the initial
generosity of the scheme aimed to achieve a
peaceful institutionalization of unemployment
in Poland: ‘the government, seeking to gain
social acceptance for its far-reaching reforms,
was more interested in a temporary solution’
(Gardawski 2002c: 2). This law contained some
peculiarities: there was no condition related
to previous employment and young graduates
entering the labour market were granted a
preferential unemployment benefit which could
reach up to 200% of the minimum wage, even
in the absence of employment history 8 (MPiPS
1995: 9; Gardawski 2002c).
Quite logically, from 1991 onwards, a number
of successive measures aimed to impose an
increasing number of restrictions on the