Polish workers eye Holland in EU job hunt

29 April 2004

AMSTERDAM — The Netherlands and Germany will be the top two choices as an estimated 5.5 million Polish people travel to other EU countries in search of work over the next two years, it was claimed on Thursday.

Two million Polish people have already made their minds up to travel to other EU members to look for work once Poland joins the community on 1 May, according to research carried out for Dutch television current affairs programme Twee Vandaag.

About one third – 700,000 – are giving serious consideration to trying their luck in the Netherlands, the report said.

Another 3.5 million Poles, mostly lower educated men and teenagers, are considering looking for work outside their own country’s borders, researchers TNS NIPO said.

The figures tally with the expectations of the Dutch public, which expects the biggest influx of workers from the 10 new member states to come from Poland.

Previous polls have suggested about 60 percent of the Dutch population is worried to a lesser or greater extent about the prospect of large numbers of Polish people moving to the Netherlands to seek work.

Subject: Dutch news+ EU enlargement