The percentage of war refugees from Ukraine who declare their willingness to stay longer in Poland is 30%, while the majority of refugees intend to return to Ukraine immediately after the end of hostilities (56%); during their stay in Poland, 63% of respondents intend to take up gainful employment, according to the special report “Refugees from Ukraine in Poland”, conducted by the EWL Migration Platform, the Foundation for the Support of Migrants in the Labor Market “EWL” and the Study of Eastern Europe at the University of Warsaw (SEW ).
Most refugees want to return to Ukraine, but every third respondent declares a willingness to stay in Poland for longer. Some respondents, however, do not intend to stay in Poland and also do not want to return to their homeland (12%). Most often they indicate such destination directions as Germany ( 26%), the United States (16%), Great Britain (11%) and Sweden (10%). This may be due to both the opening of these countries to war refugees – the existing regulations did not allow free access to the labor markets of any of these countries and social policy. Nevertheless, most refugees intend to return to Ukraine immediately after the end of hostilities (56%), the report reads.
According to the report, among the refugees, as among the employees from Ukraine surveyed in the last month of 2021, the majority are people with higher education (61%).
On the other hand, the percentage of people with secondary education has increased significantly (16% among refugees and only 6% among employees in December last year), according to the report.
Before the outbreak of the war, the respondents worked in the services and trade sector (27%), many of the refugees are highly qualified specialists (17%), as well as employees of the education sector (15%). The survey shows that 6% of refugees are doctors, paramedics or nurses.
Contrary to the migrants working in Poland in 2021, few of the refugees know Polish. Only 9% declare a good or very good knowledge of our language (compared to 45% of respondents in December 2021), according to the report.
69% of respondents prefer cities with more than 200,000 inhabitants as their place of stay. inhabitants, 45% are afraid of difficulties in finding a job in Poland. 48% of respondents declare that their relatives who stayed in Ukraine intend to come to Poland.
The study of refugees from Ukraine residing in Poland was carried out by means of face-to-face individual interviews with the use of tablets (CAPI F2F). The interviews were conducted in Ukrainian with Ukrainian citizens who left Ukraine and came to Poland after February 24, 2022. The study was carried out on March 23 – April 3, 2022 on a sample of n = 400 people, adult (18+) refugees from Ukraine.
Source: EWL/SEW and ISBnews
