Rynek pracy po akcesji polski do UE

Fighting unemployment in the EU has been and still is the most se-rious challenge to economic policy. Poland’s entry into the EU meant not only the opening of European labour markets to Poles, but also signifi cant transformations that made our market more fl exible and which have hel-ped alleviate the effects of the global fi nancial crisis. The new situation is a new challenge with regards to increasing productivity and the ability of the economy to create new jobs. Unfortunately, apart from the positive effects of the transformation, unfavorable phenomena have emerged in-cluding the too-frequent use of fi xed-term contracts by employers. This unfavorable phenomenon lessens an employer’s motivation to invest in an employee and to improve his or her qualifi cations and in the longer term worsens the socio-economic situation.The author of this article has attempted to assess the functioning of the labour market, taking into account the years 2012–2016. The choice of this particular period is directly related to the pace of the economic chan-ges that took place at that time and the incubation of new, unidentifi ed problems such as the following; the impact of EU funds on increasing the competitiveness of employers in the employment process and the pheno-menon of the economic and fi nancial recession, which at the turn of cau-sed a signifi cant rise in unemployment and a decrease in employment.