The recently concluded "Migration Forum 2026" conference-initiated a deepened debate on the future of the national labor market. The analysis of the conclusions drawn from this event shows that Poland has irreversibly completed its transformation from an emigrant to an immigrant country. However, to maintain economic stability, changing the paradigm and opening up fully to new personnel becomes crucial. The guiding theme of the expert debate became the conviction that talent has no nationality - talent only has potential.

In the face of profound demographic and structural changes, foreigners already make up almost 7% of those working in our country. According to data from the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS), at the end of the first quarter of this year, 1,305,011 foreigners were registered in the Polish system. This data clearly shows that new residents actively build our GDP and contribute to the social security system. As noted by Liliana Strupp, vice president of the Polish HR Forum and initiator of the event: "Talent has no nationality. It simply has specific potential. This data ultimately closes the debate about migration being a burden on the budget. It is exactly the opposite". Although citizens of Ukraine and Belarus still form the dominant group of the insured, new markets, including India, Colombia, and the Philippines, are gaining increasingly greater importance.

Pushing the boundaries of recruitment and bureaucracy

The phenomenon of chronic workforce shortages has ceased to be a seasonal problem and has become a structural barrier. This forces employers to search for employees on completely different continents, which breeds new operational challenges. Attorney Karolina Schiffter, partner at the Fragomen law firm, points out the emergence of new labor migration leaders, such as Latin American or African countries, alongside a withdrawal from traditional Asian directions caused by regulatory barriers.

"The main obstacle in building stable teams based on foreigners from distant markets remains the Polish bureaucracy and the immigration system, which is currently characterized by huge unpredictability. The average time needed to bring an employee to Poland is from three to even seven months, which puts us in a much worse competitive position compared to neighbors like Germany, where the process takes half as long" - explains Atty. Karolina Schiffter. The expert also adds that recruiting from the other side of the world has stopped being a simple HR task and has become a complicated strategic project that often ends in failure due to a maze of formalities and legal pitfalls on the side of the sending countries.

However, these bottlenecks and rigorous procedures are subject to an official perspective focused on securing the system. Dr Ewa Flaszyńska, director of the Labor Market Department at the Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Policy (MRPiPS), defends the introduced restrictions and points to the necessity of reliable verification: "The overarching goal of the changes was to seal borders and organize the rules of entry into the Schengen zone. The Ministry notes with satisfaction a clear decrease in the number of issued documents admitting foreigners to the Polish labor market, seeing in this proof of the successful elimination of entities that previously abused the system".

All of this is further compounded by a clash with the protectionist systems of sending countries. Using the example of the Philippines, Warsaw University doctoral candidate Olga Wanicka points out critical visa bottlenecks: "The most serious systemic constraint currently is the inefficiency of the Polish visa system. There are dramatically too few slots at the embassy in Manila, which causes labor clearance documents to expire before the migrant even reaches the consul".

MOS 2.0: Digitalization stuck halfway

The results of implementing the MOS 2.0 system were also summarized. Although the goal was to tighten procedures, operational reality brought interpretative chaos and multi-month bottlenecks. Łukasz Dudzik from Randstad Polska warns that in Warsaw alone, issuing a permit can take up to 200 days. "An employer needs an employee here and now, not in 200 days. If we add visa formalities to the prolonged procedure, the foreigner often arrives in Poland a year or a year and a half after recruitment - at a time when the demand for their work has long expired" - explains Łukasz Dudzik, pointing out that administrative delays drive the market to look for informal solutions. Marcin Grzesiak from Deloitte agrees with this diagnosis, confirming that despite digitalization, application processing times are lengthening, and the system was only half-implemented. Rafaela Wahl from Otto Work Force points to a troublesome bureaucratic dualism: "We work on two fronts today: we process applications on paper while simultaneously having to implement electronic processes. The MOS 2.0 system only partially solves the problem".

Another barrier is the lack of consistency in the functioning of public administration. Attorney Joanna Torbé-Jacko from the Law Office of Joanna Torbé-Jacko & Partners emphasizes that honest entrepreneurs primarily expect clear and repeatable rules of the game. "Employers are ready for it to be harder, but on the condition that it will be faster. Currently, entrepreneurs still face inconsistent interpretations. Each office applies its own interpretation of the regulations and requires a different set of attachments" - points out Atty. Joanna Torbé-Jacko, also criticizing the systemic limitation of the role of professional representatives in submitting online applications.

National integration strategy

In response to social challenges, the government administration is preparing a framework for a long-term integration policy. Bartłomiej Potocki, director of the Department of Social Integration at MRPiPS, announces the imminent adoption of a complementary document developed through broad pre-consultations. “The implementation schedule obligated us to create a document complementary to the migration strategy. This is a highly consensus-based proposal, developed in the course of extensive pre-consultations with over 120 entities. Our goal is to adopt the document by the middle of this year. We are not looking for a revolution, but a solid framework for activities that are already underway” - explains Bartłomiej Potocki.

Experts agreed that it cannot be perceived solely as a set of duties imposed on newcomers, but rather as a deeply two-way process involving the entire host society. As noted by Myroslava Keryk, president of the Ukrainian House Foundation, Poland became a multicultural society practically overnight, especially in the face of Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine, something not all citizens were prepared for.

In a similar tone spoke Janina Owczarek, coordinator of the Labor Migration and Social Integration Program, IOM, emphasizing that effective integration is impossible without understanding the attitudes of the Poles themselves. She noted that the state still possesses negligible knowledge of the needs and fears of local communities in the context of growing diversity. Without researching these needs, integration efforts may fall into a void" - warned Owczarek.

Experts warn that the administrative machinery can be brutal, and bureaucratic chaos hits migrants directly. Dr Kamil Matuszczyk, assistant professor at the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies of the University of Warsaw, draws attention to the so-called irregularity trap: “In Poland, it is extremely easy to lose legal residence status as a result of an official's error, a dishonest intermediary, or protracted proceedings. There is a lack of safe mechanisms to 'get back on track' - currently, a foreigner seeking help in legalizing stay risks immediate deportation”. Furthermore, dr Kamil Matuszczyk points to chronic staffing shortages in the administration, where hundreds of officials are missing, making efficient and reliable service impossible.

Migration narratives and the fight against disinformation

Unfortunately, the public debate surrounding migration is increasingly infected by the phenomenon of deliberate disinformation. Dr Aleksandra Michałowska-Kubś, senior content verification analyst at NASK, emphasizes that manipulative messages operate on strong socio-economic emotions, appealing to fears of identity or individual security. The lack of a precise government information policy only deepens this problem. Dr Olena Babakova, journalist and lecturer at Vistula University, points to glaring analytical deficiencies of the state: “In Poland, there is still a lack of coherent data regarding migration. We juggle numbers that differ from each other by hundreds of thousands of people. This creates space for manipulation”. The consequence of this chaos is growing stigmatization, which further paralyzes the constructive implementation of systemic solutions.

The conclusions contained in the conference summary leave no illusions. The future of the Polish labor market depends on whether the state can efficiently manage legal migration, remembering that skills have no borders. The slogan that talent has no nationality, but only potential, must cease to be merely a conference catchphrase and become the foundation of a predictable and coherent state policy that, instead of punishing for legality, moves to promote it through speed of action.

Publication summarizing the 2nd edition of the Migration Forum