New Shortage Occupations List in Poland

Poland’s labour shortages are no longer limited to construction workers, truck drivers or seasonal employees. A newly prepared government document identifies 329 individual occupations in which employers are facing staffing shortages, covering sectors such as healthcare, engineering, information technology, social care, aviation, energy, construction and transport.

The document, titled “List Specifying Groups of Occupations in Which Staff Shortages Occur,” is presented as an annex to a regulation of the Minister of Family, Labour and Social Policy. It divides the occupations according to Poland’s KZiS occupational classification, using four-digit codes for broader occupational groups and six-digit codes for individual professions.

A complete count of the entries shows 329 unique six-digit occupation codes grouped under 37 broader four-digit categories.

However, the version of the document currently available appears to be a draft or working version. The date of the regulation and its position in the Polish Journal of Laws have been left blank. This means the list should not yet be treated as a final, legally effective regulation unless it is officially published by the Polish authorities.

Healthcare Dominates the Shortage List

Healthcare is one of the largest areas covered by the proposed list. It includes general doctors, doctors with first-degree specialisations, and a wide range of specialist physicians.

The specialist categories cover fields including anaesthesiology and intensive care, cardiology, oncology, paediatrics, psychiatry, neurology, surgery, radiology, family medicine, emergency medicine, geriatrics, endocrinology and infectious diseases.

The list also includes more specialised medical fields such as paediatric cardiology, nuclear medicine, palliative medicine, forensic medicine, transplantology, clinical toxicology, urology and public health.

Nursing and midwifery occupations also feature prominently. Both nurses without specialisation and specialist nurses are included. The specialist nursing categories cover surgical, anaesthesiology, intensive care, diabetes, epidemiology, geriatrics, cardiology, nephrology, neonatal care, neurology, oncology, and operating-room nursing.

Further shortages are identified in long-term care, palliative care, paediatric nursing, psychiatric nursing, emergency nursing, family nursing, and health promotion. Midwives and specialist midwives working in neonatal, gynaecological, obstetric, family, and epidemiological care are also included.

The scale of the healthcare section indicates that Poland is seeking workers not only for hospitals but also for community care, elderly care, long-term care, and specialist medical services.

Strong Demand for Engineers

A substantial part of the list is devoted to engineering professions. Poland has identified shortages among industrial and production engineers responsible for work organisation, production planning, maintenance, logistics, quality control, and industrial technology.

Civil engineering occupations include engineers specialising in:

General and industrial construction
Roads and bridges
Railways and railway stations
Energy installations and networks
Geotechnical engineering
Demolition and water infrastructure

Mechanical engineers are also included across numerous specialisations, such as energy machinery, industrial equipment, precision mechanics, transport equipment, aviation, welding, refrigeration, air conditioning, and shipbuilding.

Electrical and power engineers are another important shortage group. The list covers electrical engineers, automation engineers, railway power-network engineers, lighting technology engineers, and specialists in renewable-energy equipment and systems.

IT and Digital Specialists Included

Poland’s shortage list also reflects the growing demand for technology professionals.

It includes computer systems analysts, IT systems consultants, IT architects, user-experience analysts, information-technology integration specialists, and general IT professionals.

Software-related occupations include:

Application development specialists
Software-development specialists
Blockchain technology specialists
Website architects and developers
Multimedia, animation, and game designers
Mobile-application programmers
User-interface designers
Software-quality specialists

Database administrators, data scientists, database designers, computer system administrators, and computer network engineers are also included.

This suggests that Poland’s labour-market challenges extend beyond manual and technical work into highly qualified digital and technology-based professions.

Energy, Aviation, and Laboratory Workers

The proposed list covers several technical occupations connected with electricity generation and energy infrastructure.

These include power-plant operators, hydroelectric-plant operators, control-room power engineers, measurement and protection specialists, generator operators, and operators of heating and auxiliary power-plant equipment.

Laboratory workers in microbiology, biochemistry, plant breeding, and animal breeding are also identified as shortage occupations.

The aviation section includes flight engineers, air navigators, aircraft-fuelling operators, commercial aeroplane pilots, helicopter pilots, glider pilots, balloon pilots, parachutists, avionics technicians, and aircraft-maintenance mechanics.

Social Care and Education Support

Poland is also experiencing shortages in occupations that provide direct assistance to elderly people, disabled people, children, and families.

The list includes assistants for people with disabilities, elderly-care workers, social-welfare-home carers, and community carers.

Teacher-support roles include assistants for foreign children, preschool-teacher assistants, Roma education assistants, school teaching assistants, and intercultural assistants.

Medical carers, auxiliary medical workers, home carers, and other home-based personal-care workers are included as well.

These occupations are particularly important as Poland deals with an ageing population, growing care needs and an increasingly diverse school population.

Construction and Skilled Trades Remain Critical

Traditional skilled trades make up another major part of the shortage list.

Roofers, plumbers, gas-installation fitters, sanitary-installation workers, and numerous categories of pipeline fitters are included. These range from industrial and ship pipeline installers to water, sewage, heating, gas, and renewable-energy equipment installers.

The list also identifies shortages among refrigeration mechanics, air-conditioning mechanics, ventilation-system installers, welders, solderers, welding-robot operators, and resistance-welding machine operators.

Electrical occupations are particularly extensive. They include electricians, construction electricians, photovoltaic-installation fitters, electromechanics, and electrical installers working with vehicles, refrigeration equipment, industrial machinery, ships, railway systems, transformers, and telecommunications power equipment.

Workers who install and maintain underground cables, overhead power lines, and railway traction networks are also covered.

Drivers and Machinery Operators

Poland’s long-running transport-sector shortages are clearly reflected in the document.

The list includes bus drivers, tram drivers, tanker drivers, articulated-lorry drivers, and general heavy-goods vehicle drivers.

It also covers operators of lifting and transport machinery, including dock-machine operators, mining hoist operators, conveyor operators, overhead-crane operators, mobile-crane operators, and tower-crane operators.

What the List Means for Foreign Workers

The document provides a detailed picture of the occupations in which Poland needs additional workers. It may be especially relevant to qualified foreign professionals considering employment in Poland and to Polish employers struggling to fill vacancies.

Nevertheless, inclusion on the list should not be interpreted as an automatic right to enter Poland, obtain a work permit, or receive recognition of foreign qualifications. The document primarily identifies areas of labour shortage. Any immigration or employment benefits connected with the list will depend on the final wording of the regulation and the procedures introduced by the Polish authorities.

Applicants working in regulated professions, particularly doctors, nurses and midwives, may also need to complete separate qualification recognition, professional registration and language requirements.

Poland’s Labour Shortages Are Becoming Broader

The proposed list demonstrates that Poland’s workforce shortages now affect almost every level of the economy. Demand exists for highly qualified doctors, engineers, and software professionals, but also for carers, electricians, welders, drivers, plumbers, and machinery operators.

For foreign workers, the 329-occupation list could provide a useful indication of where employment prospects are strongest. For employers, it shows the scale of the recruitment challenge facing Poland as the country attempts to maintain economic growth while dealing with demographic pressure and an insufficient supply of skilled workers.