When Kasia Brudnias returned to Warsaw in March after more than seven years in the UK, she felt she was coming back to a completely different country from the one she had left. The 49-year-old had packed her bags in 2016, driven away by unemployment and the precarious, poorly paid contracts she had as a journalist in Warsaw. She eventually settled in Cheltenham, England, to work in the hospitality industry.
She hadn't returned to Poland even once, and she finds the development of Warsaw and the country striking. "There are exotic restaurants everywhere, people are much better dressed, apartments are well furnished... We've become that 'West' we've always aspired to," said the woman, now a public health sector employee.
If proof were needed of Poland's enrichment since its accession to the European Union (EU) on May 1, 2004, 20 years ago, the history of its population movements provides it. After a massive exodus to Western Europe in the early years of membership, departures gradually stopped. Today, Poles are returning home. Since 2018, the country has recorded more immigration than emigration.
"This is mainly for economic reasons," explained Dominika Pszczolkowska of Warsaw University's Migration Research Center. "Twenty years ago, the unemployment rate in Poland was 20%; today, there's a labor shortage."
The statistics, though imprecise, point to a clear return trend: In 2017, 2.5 million Poles were living abroad; by 2023, the figure had fallen to 1.5 million. Between these two figures, the methodology has changed, making comparison tricky. "But it's fair to say that the number of Poles living abroad has fallen by several hundred thousand," said Pszczolkowska, who has just published a book on Polish emigration (How Migrants Choose Their Destinations).
This academic work traces the waves of Polish emigration at the beginning of the 21st century: First, a massive flow between 2004 and 2008, mainly to the UK and Ireland, which had not imposed a transition period to free movement, unlike the rest of the EU countries; then, the 2008 financial crisis, followed by that of the eurozone, which slowed departures to the rest of Europe; and finally, the Brexit, voted in 2016, "which marked a turning point." The UK's exit from the single market, effective from January 1, 2021, put an end to the free movement of people. Compared with the peak reached in 2016, the number of Poles living across the Channel, which had exceeded one million, has fallen by around a third.
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