For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
July 17, 2002
Fact Sheet: Poland - U.S. Department of Labor Emplyoment Initiative
The United States and Poland have agreed to sign an understanding
of cooperation to replicate the U.S. Department of Labor's successful
Workforce Development Program in six additional regions in Poland.
This understanding builds on a previous Department of Labor-funded
project in Poland and the strong working relationship that the
Department of Labor and Poland's Ministry of Labor and Social Policy
have developed over the last ten years. This program is intended to
help Poland address the serious unemployment problem that it currently
faces.
Although Poland's economy has grown strongly since the early 1990s,
its current national unemployment rate has risen from 10.5 percent in
1998 to over 18 percent today. Poland's ongoing restructuring of its
mining, steel, and other sectors of the economy will likely add
additional short-term pressures on employment. At the same time, due
to a demographic boom and the lingering economic recession, there is a
steady growth in the registration of unemployed youth (34 percent of
all registered unemployed).
Between 1998 and 2000, the Department of Labor sponsored the Poland
Workforce Development Project using Support for East European Democracy
(SEED) Act funding. The program was initially implemented in Poland's
Silesia region to address the urgent economic problems then facing
Silesia's coal and steel industries. Poland achieved significant
results for workers, enterprises, and communities, including:
6,664 new jobs as a result of the project;
13 local
economic development projects funded and implemented;
17
labor-management adjustment committees established in enterprises
experiencing mass layoffs; and
1,914 community participants
trained through the Adjustment Program.
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