Thursday, 15 January 2026
The number of online job advertisements in Poland remained broadly stable in 2025, with only minor fluctuations over the course of the year, according to the Job Offer Barometer compiled by OJALAB at WSIiZ in Rzeszów and the Office for Investment and Economic Cycles. The index slipped slightly in December to 249.8 points from 250.7 in November, marking the third consecutive but limited monthly decline. Compared with December 2024, the level was marginally lower.
Looking at the year as a whole, the balance of changes at the end of 2025 was similar to that seen a year earlier. The first quarter brought a short-lived increase in vacancies, but the momentum proved weak. In the second half of the year, and particularly in the final quarter, downward trends dominated, bringing the market back to a level close to that seen at the beginning of the year. Overall, employers maintained a relatively stable demand for new employees rather than significantly expanding recruitment.
Labour market conditions were more favourable in occupations requiring education in science or engineering. Positive changes were most visible in IT-related roles and in construction, although these gains were not sufficient to offset the sharp declines recorded in these categories in previous years. By contrast, professions linked to social sciences, law and many service roles ended the year with slightly fewer vacancies than in 2024. From a longer-term perspective, the largest pool of job offers continues to be for manual workers.
The registered unemployment rate, excluding seasonal employment, declined by 0.1 percentage points in November to 5.7%. Since mid-2025, however, the number of unemployed people has been gradually rising, leaving the unemployment rate around 0.6 percentage points higher than at the start of the year. Despite this increase, unemployment remains low by historical standards and compared with other European Union countries.
Regionally, December saw a month-on-month increase in online job offers in four provinces: Pomerania, Lublin, Mazovia and Kuyavia-Pomerania. In the remaining regions, the number of vacancies declined, with somewhat larger drops recorded in provinces with higher unemployment rates. The sharpest monthly reductions were observed in the Opole, Lubusz and Świętokrzyskie regions. Over the full year, trends varied. Some provinces, including Warmian-Masurian, Silesia, Lubusz and Łódź, recorded a steady decline in vacancies, while Subcarpathia and Greater Poland ended the year with more job offers than at its start. In other regions, increases and decreases largely balanced out.
By qualification group, professions linked to social sciences and law saw relatively strong demand in December for call centre roles, real estate positions and marketing jobs, while declines were recorded in human resources, purchasing and sales. Over the year, vacancies in banking, finance, real estate and sales decreased, and office-related roles stabilised after early declines but remained below year-earlier levels.
Among science and engineering graduates, December brought limited growth, with programmers and engineers recording the strongest demand. Over the year, IT roles related to programming showed a gradual increase, driven largely by renewed hiring by a small number of large companies after previous sharp contractions. Administrative IT roles stabilised after early gains, while construction-related vacancies continued an upward trend that has been in place since mid-2023. In contrast, engineering roles declined for much of the year, and vacancies in research and e-commerce remained low but stable.
In service occupations, December saw an increase in job advertisements across most categories. Media, tourism and parts of logistics recorded the largest monthly gains, although the media sector remains on a longer-term downward trend. Tourism showed a clear recovery in the final months of the year, ending 2025 slightly above its January level and at a relatively high level compared with previous years. Education-related vacancies fell sharply in the last quarter but remained elevated in historical terms. Logistics-related roles continued to decline overall, though signs of stabilisation appeared toward year-end, while freight forwarding recorded a net increase in vacancies over the year despite a small drop in December.
Overall, the data point to 2025 as a year of stabilisation rather than growth in job vacancies, with employers remaining cautious amid changing economic conditions and sector-specific adjustments in demand.
Source: BIEC
