Migration tide turns as east Europeans head back home

Published on Monday 16 June 2008 21:57

FOUR years after Polish graphic designer Chris Rychter headed to Britain to find work, he and his wife have returned home to Warsaw.

Part of a swelling tide of migration back east, they are having a house built in a suburb of the Polish capital.

"It took me just three days to find a job back in Warsaw," Mr Rychter, 27, said. "We never saw Britain as home. We went for the adventure and to get some professional experience."

Their return highlights strong economic growth in the new European Union member states and an accelerating slowdown in Britain – and also how quickly a pragmatic, younger European generation has adapted to working in the 21st-century globalised economy.

Mr Rychter's wife, Sabina, has taken her job with a British credit insurance company back to Poland with her.

"You could say I am tele- commuting," she said. "In today's world, with computers and mobile phones, my presence in head office is not required as before. I can sit here in Warsaw and have the flexibility to do my job."

Helped by cheap travel as flights between Warsaw and London grew almost tenfold after Poland joined the EU in 2004, the Rychters show how Europe has shrunk and that, contrary to the popular view, migrant flows are not all one way.

Economists now talk of a turnstile, or pendulum, effect, with people moving between countries after quite short stints in search of better conditions.

About half the one million people from eastern Europe who moved to Britain after EU enlargement in 2004 have already returned home, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research. And work applications from those eight new states were down 13 per cent in the first quarter of this year, compared with 2007.

For many eastern European migrants, recent currency trends favour a return, and Poland's government wants people back to help plug labour gaps.

The trend is also positive for the wider Polish economy. Malgorzata Czerwinska, a Warsaw estate agent, said about 20 per cent of the apartments she sells now go to such returnees, who generally pay cash with savings made abroad.

Only Britain, Ireland and Sweden opened their job markets to the easterners in 2004: other states have slowly followed and France will open its labour market next month.

Poland, with 38 million people, was by far the largest of the 2004 eastern entrants,

and economic factors are the main factor luring Poles back home.

"The Polish zloty has appreciated by about 40 per cent against the British pound since 2004, so people should be heading back," Michael Dembinski, of the British-Polish Chamber of Commerce in Warsaw, said. "Given the cost-of-living differential between the two countries it makes little sense to be an economic migrant now in the UK."

Many east Europeans in Britain and Ireland have been employed in the construction and related sectors, which have been particularly hard hit by the economic slowdown. "I went to London hoping to save up some money. I had a great time but never managed to save a penny," said Marcin Kikut, 27, who now teaches English in Warsaw after returning a few months ago.

IN NUMBERS

6.1

The percentage by which Poland's economy grew in the first quarter of 2008. Britain's economy is expected to grow by just 1.8 per cent in 2008.

20

The percentage of the population who were unemployed in Poland in 2004 when many left for Britain. It is now 10.5 per cent.

12.6

The percentage rise in corporate-sector wages in Poland in April partly because of tighter supply due to migration.