Direct impact of airports on regional labor markets in Poland

The article is devoted to the analysis of the direct impact of chosen airports on the regional labor markets in Poland. The authors try to answer the following research questions: how the development of the Polish air transport market influenced labor markets in regions? Whether the growing air traffic at Polish airports, particularly regional airports, entails the increase of employment at airports and in companies located at the airports and offering services for air transport? Whether the increase of employment is proportional to the increase in the number of passengers and cargo in the air transport? In the introduction the categories of impact of an airport on regional economy have been described, then the development of the air transport market in Poland after the accession to the EU and direct impact of chosen airports on labor market – employment generated by 5 regional airports, which shared the primary data, i.e. Kraków Airport, Katowice Airport, Wrocław Airport, Bydgoszcz Airport, and Szczecin Airport have been presented. The analysis of the size of employment has been tied with the analysis of changes in the size of air traffic in the examined airports. In the last part of the article these airports have been presented in the background of the biggest employers in the regions from the industry, trade and services sectors