Rigid jobs system keeps women and older workers out, OECD calls for urgent reforms

The new OECD report, Developing Public Employment Services for Economically Inactive People in Poland (2025), prepared in collaboration with Statistics Poland and enriched by interviews with local powiat labour offices, delivers a sharp warning about the country’s underused labour potential. Although Poland’s economic inactivity rate of 13 percent mirrors the EU average, this masks troubling realities. Inactivity is concentrated in poorer rural areas and among groups with chronic health problems, low education, or extended breaks from work. Women dominate this category, with 87 percent of those not receiving pensions or disability benefits being female. The statutory retirement age, still 60 for women and 65 for men, is one of the lowest for women in the OECD, and there are no plans for reform. The report points out that Poland is falling behind its neighbours, many of which have raised retirement ages to reflect demographic pressures.

Rigid Labour Market, Limited Flexibility

Labour market structures are further entrenched in inactivity. Only 4 percent of Poles aged 15 to 64 work part-time, compared with an OECD average of 15 percent. Remote work is equally rare at 5 percent, well below the EU’s 9 percent. Such inflexibility hits mothers and older workers hardest, especially those who seek gradual re-entry or need jobs that accommodate caregiving. Poland’s Public Employment Services (PES) are ill-suited to this task. Their catalogue of services, short training, job matching, and internships, was designed to serve the short-term unemployed rather than people coping with outdated skills, health concerns, or low self-confidence. Profiling tools, once used to tailor support, were abandoned in 2019 amid concerns about fairness and transparency. The OECD argues that PES has not adapted to the complex barriers facing the inactive, where psychological, social, and structural obstacles often overlap.

The Gender Divide and Local Experiments

The gendered dimension of inactivity is one of the report’s strongest themes. Women often remain outside the labour market long after their caregiving years, hindered by skill erosion, entrenched employer bias, and social expectations. State childcare support only extends to children under seven, leaving mothers of older children excluded. Yet there are flashes of innovation at the local level. In Gdańsk, the Women on their Own programme helped single mothers return to work with business start-up grants, legal aid, and childcare assistance. These initiatives show promise but remain fragmented and short-lived. International comparisons point to more robust models. In the United Kingdom, returner programmes provide mentoring, confidence-building workshops, and direct employer placements for women re-entering work after long absences. The OECD highlights such models as examples that Poland could adapt to unlock female labour potential at scale.

Understaffed Offices, Unstable Funding

Institutional weaknesses remain a central barrier. Responsibility for employment policy is spread across the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy, regional offices, and local powiats. Yet it is the powiats that serve on the frontlines, often stretched beyond capacity. In some areas, one officer handles as many as 178 registered unemployed, leaving little time for proactive outreach to the inactive. Funding constraints make matters worse. The Labour Fund is the main vehicle, but its allocations are unstable. In 2022, 56 percent went to active labour market policies such as internships and start-up subsidies, 34 percent to unemployment benefits, and just 2 percent to administration. Over the years, the share spent on active policies has fluctuated between 20 and 50 percent, preventing consistent long-term planning. Meanwhile, the National Training Fund primarily serves those already in employment, with little benefit for people outside the labour force.

Building Partnerships for the Future

The OECD makes clear that Poland must rethink how it approaches inactivity. Better use of data is a starting point. While Estonia integrates registry data to identify inactive individuals, Poland’s PES lacks access to social insurance and welfare records. Automated, anonymised data flows between institutions such as the Social Insurance Institution, PES, and the Ministry of Digital Affairs could revolutionise early intervention. Health assessments also need reform. Current evaluations focus on certifying incapacity for benefits, rather than assessing what people can still do. The report recommends multidisciplinary approaches that link medical professionals, career counsellors, and PES officers to create activation plans rooted in an individual’s remaining capacity. Employers, too, must play a greater role. Small and medium-sized enterprises, often wary of bureaucracy, rarely engage beyond wage subsidies. Yet by co-designing flexible jobs, offering mentoring, and investing in tailored training, employers could help turn inactive groups into a valuable resource.

The report’s conclusion is stark: Poland can no longer afford to treat inactivity as a marginal issue. With an ageing population and labour shortages looming, the country risks undermining its own economic growth if it fails to act. What emerges is a portrait of a system designed in the 1990s to manage unemployment but now confronted with a more complex challenge, re-engaging citizens long disconnected from the labour force. Modernising the PES, investing in digital and human resources, fostering cross-institutional partnerships, and creating flexible employment pathways are not optional; they are essential. The OECD’s roadmap is as much about social inclusion as it is about economic strategy, urging Poland to transform its dormant workforce into an engine of resilience and prosperity.