In their work, the experts relied on information from the Polish state authorities.

The figures for December were not included in the final report.

Andrey Kazakevich

called the number of Belarusian citizens who received the right to work in Poland under a simplified procedure a

"shocking trend" .

In 2022, 217,374 such permits were issued against 103,749 in 2021, 82,743 in 2020 and 69,524 in 2019.

At the same time, it should be noted that the number of issued documents is not equal to the number of persons, Kazakevich notes, because "one person could receive several permits during the year."

According to the research, last year 153,160 citizens of Belarus received the right to work in Poland under a simplified procedure.

In total, 171,578 Belarusians were granted access to the Polish labor market in 2022.

Andrei Kazakevich believes that the majority of such citizens do not live in Poland on a permanent basis, but only come to the country "to work under a contract".

He called this phenomenon "pendulum migration", which, according to him, can "create significant problems for the labor market of Belarus".

The research showed that there are noticeably more Belarusian men working in Poland than women (72% versus 28%).

Belarusian citizens are mainly employed in occupational specialties.

34.4% work in the field of transport and logistics, 23.6% in construction, and 17.6% in the manufacturing industry.

The majority of Belarusians migrate to Poland at an active working age: 34.47% belong to the 25-34 age category, 28.29% to 35-44.

"As a rule, these are qualified specialists who have experience and have built a career," Kazakevich stated.

The research showed that in 2022, 18,418 people with a Belarusian passport had access to the Polish labor market on a work visa.

This is significantly less than before: in 2021, 34,830 Belarusians belonged to this category, in 2020 - 28,553, in 2019 - 29,129. documents for obtaining a residence permit".

In 2022, almost 80,000 Belarusian citizens will live in Poland

According to the received data, in 2022, 64,684 people with Belarusian passports had the right to permanent residence in Poland.

Of them, 30,421 Belarusians had permanent residence permits, 28,071 had temporary ones, and another 6,172 were legalized in the country on other grounds (escape, international protection, etc.).

Holders of humanitarian visas were not taken into account in the study.

To get a more complete picture, citizens who were "in limbo" at the time of the research should be added to this figure: they submitted documents for obtaining a residence permit, but their requests have not yet been approved, Kazakevich notes.

Experts estimate the number of such Belarusians at 15,000.

Thus, according to the political analyst, the total number of citizens of Belarus who are legally in Poland is close to 80,000.

According to Kazakevich, a noticeable and steady increase in the migration of Belarusians to Poland began in 2017.

The main factors were the deterioration of the economic situation in Belarus, as well as the softening of migration legislation and employment rules in the EU countries.

In 2016, 11,428 Belarusian citizens lived legally in Poland, in 2017 - 15,339, in 2018 - 20,114, in 2019 - 25,567, in 2020 - 28,745, in 2021 - 40,704.