CHARACTERISTICS OF RURAL LABOUR MARKET AT THE TIME OF POLISH ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION

This paper presents the character and directions of the rural labour market evolution during the Polish economic transition. The results of a theoretical and empirical analysis confirmed a decline in the economic activity of the rural population including employment, a decline that is the most prominent among youths and women. This decrease followed a large number of redundancies in the public sector as a consequence o f restructuring and privatising the Polish economy. In consequence of this process structural unemployment occurred and rose dramatically, in particular among this part of the rural population that is not engaged in farming. The unemployment rate in the country varies according to employment status as well as demographic and geographic factors. The fundamental way of fighting unemployment in rural areas is to accelerate the multifunctional development of farms and rural areas in addition to invigorating the state’s structural policy, especially by stimulating the national economic growth and competitiveness on the domestic and foreign markets, as well as providing assistance to the individual enterprise in rural areas in industries other than farming