Poland introduces employment scheme for workers over 50

In line with a labour ministry decision, Polish companies which hire workers over 50 will no longer need to pay some of their insurance fund contributions, TVN CNBC Biznes reports.

This way, employers can save 2.45% of the gross salary which normally should go to the Labour Fund and 0.1% which should be paid to the Guaranteed Employee Benefits Fund.

‘All saved money will be paid into the system and will be invested in people’ Krzysztof Kłapa, corporate director at McDonalds Polska, a company hiring employees aged 50+, tells TVN CNBC Biznes. But according to a study by Eurostat, the average level of professional activity among 56 – 64-year-olds in the EU is 45.6% while in Poland it is 31.6%.

"50 plus" Program is meant to reverse this trend. ‘We need the labour of people over 50’ Labour Minister Jolanta Fedak is quoted as saying by the channel.

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ECONOMIC MONITOR

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• ● In December 2009 and January 2010, as in previous months in the second half of 2009, the Polish economy stood out against other countries in terms of GDP growth. Poland’s economic growth was higher than projected and higher than in other European countries.
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• In 2009 construction output increased by 3.7%.
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• Retail sales increase in most product groups.
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• On the Warsaw Stock Exchange, stock prices were very volatile in January 2010.
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• At the end of December 2009 the registered unemployment rate (claimant count rate) amounted to 11.9% versus 11.4% in November.
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• At the end of January the president signed the 2010 budget bill into law. The bill was adopted by the parliament on December 18.
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• In the fourth quarter of 2009 the Polish economy turned out to be more resistant to the global crisis than had been projected and than the economies of Polish neighbours, something which boosts optimism in forecasts for 2010 and the next years.
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WEEKLY MARKET ANALYSIS

Retail sales up again in June
Retail sales growth in nominal terms accelerated in June to 6.4% y-o-y from 4.3% y-o-y in May. The increase was higher than expected. In real terms, retail sales growth accelerated to 4.5% y-o-y from 2.0% y-o-y. June was a consecutive month with retail sales figures stronger than expected, which indicates that consumption is recovering after it slowed significantly at the beginning of the year. Private consumption is driven by an improvement on the labour market coupled with a rise in disposable incomes. In Q2 2010 retail sales grew by around 3% y-o-y in nominal terms and around 1% y-o-y in real terms. On the basis of retail sales and industrial production data, it can be estimated that the GDP growth rate was close to 3%.

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