How The West Was Won

(4 of 5)

That, of course, is a mixed blessing. Poland has been losing skilled people since 1989, and lately the exodus has accelerated. Some 900,000 Poles, or more than 3% of the working-age population, are now working elsewhere in the E.U. In Poland itself, three-quarters of the members of the country's largest private employers' association now report problems finding workers. "We are constantly looking for people," sighs Dorota Nowak, board member of a bus company in Silesia. Piotr Nowak, who runs the small Now-Bud construction company in the northwestern city of Slupsk, says: "Customers keep calling, but I have to refuse them because I don't have the people to work. Before, people applied for a job. Now I have to beg them." The loss of doctors and nurses to Western hospitals is putting an underfunded health-care system under enormous additional strain.

How long will this latest emigration continue? According to a government survey in Britain, a majority of expatriate Poles from the new wave expect to go home within two years. "My guess is that this was a pent-up desire to leave and it will end at some point," says economist Tim Hatton, a labor-market expert at the University of Essex, of the past two years. "This was a onetime shock." But the shock's not over yet. True, Poland's economy is growing at a healthy 5.9% clip, but its unemployment rate, at 15%, is the worst in the E.U. A stolid business culture does little to attract the brightest and best to stay and find those jobs that are available. Former President Aleksander Kwasniewski recently commented that young Poles he met in Britain complained about an attitude in Poland that "killed joy and looked with suspicion on any kind of success." Polish economists such as Ryszard Petru, chief economist at Bank BPH, and Witold Orlowski, former economic adviser to Kwasniewski, say the government should cut hiring costs, taxes and social spending. Poland's vocational schools could do with a rethink; last year, they turned out 10,000 shop assistants but only 300 road builders. "Whether we will be the second Ireland or the Third World depends very much on the government's policy," Petru says.

Some Poles, to be sure, think the joys of life overseas can be captured back home. Bozena Wozna, 33 (see profile), spent 21/2 years researching and teaching in London before returning last summer to the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science in Czestochowa. "In the beginning, it's great over there. You have more money. You can buy more things. Life is more comfortable," she recalls. "But you have no roots." That message resonates with Chudzicka, the TV-show host. Ireland, she says, has given her opportunities she could only dream of at home. But she too would be ready to go back "if the job is there." On the other hand, she doesn't rule out moving to a third country. In Europe's increasingly flexible job market, nations will compete for the most talented workers. Plenty of them, if the last few years are a guide, will have a Polish passport and a taste for Bison Grass Vodka.

Izabela Chudzicka
TV JOURNALIST
In 2001, Izabela Chudzicka took a trip to Ireland to check out the job market. Back then, she would never have guessed she'd still be there today — much less, that at 26 she would be one of the best known Polish faces in Dublin. Her fame derives not from her financial acumen (though she worked in a bank and studied economics) but from her TV skills. She'd always wanted to be a presenter and, in 2005, at a meeting with an Irish broadcaster, she pitched the idea of a Polish-language variety show. Oto Polska: Extra! (This Is Poland: Extra!) was an overnight hit, required viewing for tens of thousands of expatriate Poles. Chudzicka sees her job as a window between two worlds. One program introduced Polish girls to Irish guys, a cross-cultural version of MTV's Dismissed! Now she hopes to introduce regular English-language content to the show so that Irish viewers can learn more about the lively community in their midst. Despite her evident affection for her adopted country, she hopes someday to go home: "The dream was to work on TV in Poland, not Ireland." But only Ireland gave her the chance.