Most companies in Poland are still experiencing difficulties in recruiting skilled and experienced staff, with high employment rates confirmed by statistics. “Of the Big Six, Poznań had the lowest unemployment rate of 1.1 per cent at the end of April 2024, with the highest of 4.6 per cent being in Łódź. By province, the lowest unemployment rate of 3.1 per cent was in Greater Poland, while the highest of 8.5 per cent was in Subcarpathia,” says Maria Dąbrowska, Head of Accommodation, EWL Group.

Labour market competition for staff also impacts salary levels and other incentives offered to employees. “In the case of temp workers in the warehouse sector, particularly in periods of heightened demand during summer holidays and in the closing weeks of the year, the use of additional bonuses is becoming standard practice in reaching out not only to candidates who generally choose to work in logistics, but also to people working in administration or agriculture who would like to take advantage of an attractive job offer to earn some extra money on a temporary basis. It is worth noting that local poviat labour offices in almost all of these locations report that warehouse workers are in short supply,” explains
Małgorzata Mudyna, Regional Manager, Randstad Polska.

Low unemployment and high employee expectations in the largest regional cities may mean a growth opportunity for smaller cities offering better access to labour.
 

Will this provide a sufficient boost to warehouse development? “At Newmark Polska, we are also receiving enquiries from current and potential tenants about locations in northern and eastern Poland. Smaller emerging markets such as Białystok, Lublin and Rzeszów undoubtedly have a huge potential but need time and a better economic climate to start playing a bigger role on the Polish industrial market. They are still in their relative infancy and the investment and business slowdown caused by the pandemic and exacerbated by inflation and the war in Ukraine has seen developers focus on historically key industrial locations,” explains Jan Olszewski.

What instead of the Big Six?

The offer of the six largest cities is likely to be complemented by satellite cities which may also represent an interesting direction of the warehouse and industrial market growth. “The advantage of smaller cities near large hubs is better worker accommodation. Such locations also attract manufacturing and logistics companies with lower rental rates allowing them to plan expansion on smaller budgets. Limited public transport in such towns has been a major obstacle so far, but it can be quite easily overcome by providing employee transport services. We are already seeing good market practices whereby developers support tenants in this area. A good example is MDC2, which offers tenants assistance in organising employee transport in its facility in Głuchów near Łódź,” says Jan Olszewski from Newmark Polska.

This view is shared by Małgorzata Mudyna, who says that robots will in the long term partly ease staff shortages resulting from the rapidly changing demographics in Poland. In the long run, the combination of robotization and AI, including the development of self-driving vehicles and devices powered by data analysed by AI, is also likely to lead to less demand for some manual skills. “At the same time, there will be increased demand for employees with experience in oversight, basic programming and operation and maintenance of such devices - these skills are scarce on the market. Due to changes taking place, assistance in reskilling and upskilling will be extremely important. Only employee education and training will mitigate the consequences of technological developments on the labour market,” concludes the expert from Randstad Polska.