In the small studio she shares with another Ukrainian family, who arrived like her a few days ago in Poland, Lyubov Kukinskaya is delighted to have found a job in a warehouse operated by a Carrefour subcontractor. This Ukrainian woman left Korosten, in the north of Zhytomyr, in the west of her country, to take shelter, herself and her son. Thanks to one of her contacts, she was able to get in touch with Urban Recruitment, a recruitment firm based in Piotrkow Trybunalski, in central Poland, and now involved in the evacuation and employment of Ukrainian women fleeing the war.
“In my country, I worked in an office as an engineer on construction projects. Of course, the warehouse is going to be a little different, but I’ll adapt. In any case, it is impossible to practice one’s profession in Poland, given the number of Ukrainians there. Any job would do. I’m already happy to have one! » says a smiling philosopher, Lyubov, who has also enrolled her 13-year-old son, David, in the nearest school.
Opposite the building where Lyubov Kukinskaya and several other refugee families are staying, Pawel Jamro, director of the transport section at Urban Recruitment, is optimistic about the possibilities reserved for those who have fled Ukraine. After all, his company worked with a predominantly Ukrainian workforce before the war, albeit a male one.
“But it won’t be easy: will the Polish labor market be able to absorb such a large number of female workers? » he wonders, as 1.7 million people have passed through Polish soil since the start of the conflict on 24 February. “Before, the factories preferred men, but since then they have made no difficulty in hiring women. Warehouses have also reorganized to give them work,” observes the forties.
This flexibility of Polish employers, Maciej Witucki, president of the Lewiatan confederation – the largest employers’ organization in the country – also welcomes it. “Owners of service station networks immediately contacted me to tell me that they had 150 to 200 positions to fill and that they did not require any knowledge of the Polish language”, notes the professional engineer, who notes that, “for part-time work, it’s a little more complicated in a large assembly plant or a large logistics center”.
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