Some friends of mine who are returning to Poland are searching in every nook and cranny for evidence of their previous employment, all in order get a single piece of paper required by our native bureaucrats.
Of course, these employment records will also have to be translated into Polish before they can be submitted – a service which costs about €30 per document. So for instance, if someone was working for three different employers, the total (plus phone calls and postage expenses) could grow to well over €100.
All of this merely to get another form to fill in: the unemployed person application.
For those returning from Ireland, getting status as an unemployed person in Poland takes on average about two months. Those are two very long months for the majority of returnees.
But is there a way out of this bureaucratic mess? Of course there is.
I’ll give you a good example. Recently I decided to establish a company. But to get state funding for such a small business as mine, you have to apply before you register the company. The competition for this funding lasts three months ¬– and of course, you need your ‘unemployed person’ status to enter.
So I chose another route, and went to my local town council, where I gathered the necessary forms to register my company, and established its name and logo within a week.
Two or three more days were spent preparing for the next step – what I’d do after receiving my registration number from the statistical database. It took a few weeks for the letter to arrive, but in the meantime I set up a business plan and promotion campaign, and made plans for an online presence.
After the golden number arrived, finishing up the most important things – like stamps, a bank account, a visit to the tax office, getting a listing in the Yellow Pages – took a few hours tops. And some financial assistance will come after all – from the town council, for newly established businesses.
So one month of proactive work versus four months of sitting at home and waiting for the state bureaucrats’ decisions. Haven’t I already underlined in this column my preference for regional government?
– Anna Paluch
