Poland: Unemployment soars

The official unemployment rate in Poland leapt in December to a record 
17.4 per cent amid a recession and crisis in the manufacturing industry. 
Dole queues, which broke three million in November, were up in December by 
93,000 to 3.115 million.

Unemployment was up by a massive 412,000 from a year earlier, when the rate 
was 15.1 per cent.

Industrial output slumped by over five per cent in December, car sales in 
the month were the lowest in six years and the ailing steel industry 
hitting 20 per cent of its workforce last year.

In a front-page story headlined "Unemployment Plague", the Prawo I 
Gospodarka newspaper revealed that 80 per cent of unemployed people 
were not entitled to benefits.

For each registered vacancy, there were 585 people out of work.

Production in Poland's steel industry slumped by 16 per cent in 2001 to 8.6 
million tonnes.

The industry axed 7,500 workers last year, bringing the total number of 
workers that it employs to 31,000.

Prime Minister Leszek Miller has blamed central bankers for causing mass 
unemployment by pursuing an excessively harsh monetary policy.

Polish interest rates, at 11.5 per cent, are among the highest in Europe in 
real terms.

Mr Miller is expected to announce further privatisation of publicly owned 
industries in the near future.

Poland's Finance Ministry has revised down its forecast for economic growth 
in the final quarter of 2001 to between 0.6 and 0.9 per cent.

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Morning Star, Britain's left daily