Tuesday, 15 September 2026
The number of people in Poland working exclusively through civil-law arrangements increased noticeably over the year to March 2026, highlighting the continuing importance of work outside conventional employment contracts. At the end of March, 1.477 million people were working exclusively under contracts of mandate and comparable arrangements, according to Statistics Poland. This was 82,000 more than in March 2025, representing annual growth of 5.9%. Compared with the end of December 2025, however, the number declined by 20,900, or 1.4%.
A further 20,300 people worked exclusively under contracts covering the completion of a specified task during March. Unlike the mandate-contract figures, which represent the number of people working under such arrangements at the end of the month, this figure measures people who entered into a specified-task contract during March. Men represented a slight majority of people working exclusively under mandate and related contracts, accounting for 51.5% at the end of March. Their number increased 6.1% year-on-year, compared with growth of 5.6% among women.
Administrative and support services accounted for the largest concentration of these workers. The sector, which includes employment placement agencies among its activities, had 312,600 people working exclusively under mandate and related arrangements at the end of March. This represented 21.2% of the national total, meaning that more than one in five people covered by the statistics worked in this broad area. Health and social work represented the second-largest category, with 154,600 people, equivalent to 10.5% of the total.
The sector distribution also covers areas closely connected with the property economy, including construction, manufacturing, transportation and storage, real estate, professional services and accommodation. The figures provide a broader picture of a segment of Poland’s workforce that can be difficult to identify through conventional employment statistics.
The population measured by Statistics Poland does not include people already classified as employed in the national economy, students under the age of 26 or people carrying out comparable work without remuneration. The data are based on administrative information held by Poland’s Social Insurance Institution, ZUS.
Statistics Poland refined its methodology for identifying people working exclusively through these contractual arrangements, and from 2026 the figures have been classified as official statistics rather than the experimental data published for periods up to the end of 2025.
The 5.9% annual increase therefore provides an additional perspective on changes taking place in Poland’s labour market. While conventional employment indicators remain important for assessing economic conditions, almost 1.5 million people were earning exclusively through mandate and related civil-law arrangements at the end of March.
For businesses and sectors dependent on flexible labour, the figures underline the scale of this part of Poland’s workforce. They also demonstrate why assessments of labour availability increasingly need to look beyond conventional employment relationships when considering the country’s workforce and the industries supporting its property and wider economy.
Source: Statistics Poland
