Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
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THE POLITICS OF LABOUR MARKET ADJUST-<br />
MENT IN POST-1989 POLAND<br />
Table 2. Employment and unemployment in Poland (% of active population)<br />
1990<br />
1991<br />
1992<br />
1993<br />
1994<br />
1995<br />
1996<br />
1997<br />
1998<br />
1999<br />
2000<br />
2001<br />
2002<br />
2003<br />
2004<br />
2005<br />
2006<br />
2007<br />
2008<br />
Registered<br />
unemployment<br />
rate<br />
Employment<br />
rate<br />
(LFS)<br />
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<br />
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<br />
Source: employment services (data end of year) and labour force survey (Q4)<br />
page 130<br />
The introduction and erosion of the<br />
unemployment benefit<br />
In the early 1990s, policy-makers were<br />
concerned that the surge of unemployment<br />
and a temporary deterioration of economic<br />
conditions could put regime change at<br />
risk. An unemployment benefit was swiftly<br />
introduced as the major instrument in view<br />
of alleviating the consequence of losing one’s<br />
job. While the government response included<br />
both passive and active labour market policies,<br />
the first largely prevailed. The Employment<br />
Act, which became the Act on Employment and<br />
Unemployment in 1991, established a network of<br />
public employment offices, an unemployment<br />
compensation scheme, a dedicated Labour<br />
Fund, and limited active labour programmes 7 .<br />
The Labour Fund, which served to<br />
finance them, was relying primarily on<br />
state subsidies (up to three-quarters<br />
of the total) and, to a lesser extent, on<br />
social contributions.<br />
The first measures could appear generous<br />
in the context. The level of benefit was<br />
initially calculated on the basis of the last<br />
remuneration and length of unemployment<br />
with a starting level of 70% (within the limit<br />
of the average wage) during the first three<br />
months, subsequently falling but unlimited in<br />
time. When a significant rise of unemployment<br />
was expected, this was a generous and<br />
costly scheme, which would quickly become<br />
unsustainable. It is highly likely that the initial<br />
generosity of the scheme aimed to achieve a<br />
peaceful institutionalization of unemployment<br />
in Poland: ‘the government, seeking to gain<br />
social acceptance for its far-reaching reforms,<br />
was more interested in a temporary solution’<br />
(Gardawski 2002c: 2). This law contained some<br />
peculiarities: there was no condition related<br />
to previous employment and young graduates<br />
entering the labour market were granted a<br />
preferential unemployment benefit which could<br />
reach up to 200% of the minimum wage, even<br />
in the absence of employment history 8 (MPiPS<br />
1995: 9; Gardawski 2002c).<br />
Quite logically, from 1991 onwards, a number<br />
of successive measures aimed to impose an<br />
increasing number of restrictions on the