Employment of Migrants as a Response to the Needs of Entrepreneurs in Rural Border Regions—Examples from Poland

Abstract

The aim of the study was to identify the needs of entrepreneurs in the context of labor shortages on the local labor market and supplement them with immigrants from Ukraine. The focus was on border enterprises from rural areas located on the external border of Poland and the EU. It was determined in which industries cross-border entrepreneurs are looking for migrants to work. A research questionnaire was created to determine the migrant’s profile from the point of view of the entrepreneur’s needs. It covered 400 enterprises, 100 from each of the surveyed voivodeships of Eastern Poland: Warmia-Masuria, Podlaskie, Lublin and Subcarpathia. Correspondence analysis was used to help determine differences in entrepreneurs’ preferences in the studied voivodeships. Entrepreneurs are most likely to employ qualified immigrants with professional experience in flexible forms of work. They expect that immigrants will be more available and will have lower wage requirements compared to local workers, which will translate into lower labor costs and better economic results. They believe that employing immigrants will improve productivity, quality and work discipline. The main limitations include ignorance or poor knowledge of the language of the host country, premature termination of contracts and working under the influence of alcohol.

1. Introduction

The concept of sustainable development has become a premise for the socio-economic development of many countries around the world [1,2], including the European Union (EU). Policies in this area have been directed towards a more efficient and sustainable use of scarce resources, including human resources. This was to translate into sustainable socio-economic development and bridging the gaps between countries/regions [3,4,5]. Only then will development be sustainable if, among other things, economic linkages do not deplete environmental capital and take into account the role of human and social capital. The realisation of this requires solidarity in relations between different countries/regions and the treatment of economic, political, environmental and, above all, social factors as interdependent [6]. This acquires particular importance in relation to rural areas, usually peripheral, economically weak (e.g., low level of wealth of inhabitants, limited investment opportunities, low level of education) and characterised by a high outflow of population [7,8]. In rural areas, building social capital becomes the main integrating factor and an important challenge in striving to improve the living conditions of the population living and doing business there. It is worth emphasising that most of Poland’s area is rural, accounting for more than 90% of the country’s area. They are of particular importance, as they are the place of residence for half of the Polish population, a source of livelihood for one in three, and a place of work for one in four [9]. Therefore, the social capital (including human capital) of Polish rural areas is one of the most important determinants of their competitiveness and constitutes an important source of development processes.

Especially since the face of Polish rural areas has been changing significantly in recent years. Identified until recently with the production of food and agricultural raw materials, they now perform many new functions (e.g., consumption, services) not related to agricultural production. This results, among other things, from Poland’s entry into the EU structures and the need to adapt to EU policy in the context of sustainable development [10].

Furthermore, there are regional differences in Poland in the economic sphere [11,12]. In terms of the synthetic entrepreneurship indicator among Poland’s 16 provinces, the provinces of eastern Poland fared worst: Lublin (19.7), Subcarpathia (24.6), Warmia-Masuria (26.6), Podlaskie achieved (43.3) (Figure 1) [13]. Historical (external border of Poland and EU between former post-Soviet countries) and socio-economic (e.g., jobs, income level of population, inflow of foreign capital, level of development of technical, social infrastructure) conditions had an impact on this. In the context of sustainable development, a number of measures are taken to bridge regional differences [14]. This mainly concerns the economically weakest areas, which include the border voivodeships of eastern Poland [15]. The development processes that have been taking place there since the 1990s have not been able to close the gap to other Polish voivodeships. This is not facilitated by the rural character of the area, the low population density and the decapitalised technical, economic and social infrastructure. An additional obstacle is the state border (with the Russian Federation, Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania and Slovakia) and the distance from the main growth centres both in the country and on the other side of the border [16].

There is also a large regional variation in Poland in terms of population outflows, especially after 2004 (Poland’s entry into the EU structures). According to the data of the National Census [17] conducted in Poland in 2021, the largest number of temporary foreign migrations took place precisely in the regions of eastern Poland.

Thus, the poor socio-economic situation of rural regions of eastern Poland often influences the decision to emigrate for work and thus contributes to the depopulation of these areas, especially from people of working age, who are a source of labour resources. Entrepreneurs in these areas are forced to fill the gap in labour resources with, for example, immigrants from the Ukraine. The article focuses on immigrants from Ukraine because, according to statistical data [18], the vast majority of immigrants in Poland are Ukrainian citizens (73.1%), and other nations are in the minority and are citizens from Belarus (4.4%), Moldova (2.2%) and Georgia (1.7%).

The necessity to adapt immigration laws and provide state support becomes the opportunity to find missing workers [19]. The introduction of the regulation made it possible to use the professional potential and the qualification and skills of migrants in the Polish labour market. It also made it possible to partially solve labour shortages [20,21,22].

Migration, as research shows, can have a significant impact not only in the demo-graphic context, but also in the social and economic context (if only from the point of view of entrepreneurial development in the country) [23,24]. Addressing the topic of the em-ployment of immigrants by entrepreneurs in peripheral areas with a weak economic si-tuation and a high outflow of population, is justified by theoretical concepts on migration.

Relevant here is the theory of labour market segmentation (and more specifically to the dual labour market theory) [25]. The theory invoked assumes a permanent shortage of labour. As a rule, this concerns low-paid, non-prestigious or dangerous jobs that local (national) workers are unwilling to take on. Consequently, the shortage in such a labour market can only be filled by immigrants who are not in competition with local workers [26]. As a result, their employment has a stabilising effect on the local economy and balances its development: it does not increase the unemployment rate, does not raise the wage level and thus does not lead to structural inflation [27]. Referring to the above theory, the subject of consideration is the migration of Ukrainians and their employment opportunities on the Polish labor market (especially in rural border areas). Especially for the key sectors for Polish entrepreneurs, i.e., construction, services (cleaning, child and elderly care), trade and catering. These are often perceived by Poles as dangerous (construction), less prestigious (child and elderly care, cleaning, waitressing, communal services) and less well paid.

The push-pull theory [28] is also relevant to the issues raised in terms of sustainable development of rural border areas. It is based on the assumption that people naturally lead a sedentary lifestyle and are usually not willing to change it. There must therefore be strong incentives to migrate, e.g., related to the place of origin (push factors) or the area of destination (pull factors). Therefore, these factors include difficult living conditions, low standards of living, international and internal armed conflicts, among others. The authors assumed that the push factor is the ongoing war. And the pull factors are the assistance of entrepreneurs in taking up employment.

Of the approximately 10 million Ukrainians forcibly relocated after 24 February 2022 (Russia-Ukraine war), the majority of them found refuge in Poland, with almost one million remaining until the present, i.e., 2024 [29]. A number of organisations, including entrepreneurs, have invested in the human capital of migrants to support them in accessing the labour market in Poland. As a result, around two-thirds of Ukrainian migrants of working age have found work in Poland. In comparison, in October 2022, there were approximately 623,000 migrants of working age 18–64 in Poland (according to the PESEL assigned to them in Poland) [30,31]. An NBP survey conducted in 2022 [32] indicated that about 78% of the adult migrants declared that they were working or ready to work in Poland (about 486 thousand persons), of which about 181 thousand found employment. The survey also showed that an additional 300 thousand people should be supported in their search for work. This is an untapped potential by entrepreneurs, as only 1/3 of all migrants declaring to work in Poland worked. It becomes important to determine what is the reason for this situation. Especially as the business sector is of particular importance in the economy. It generates more than 70% of Poland’s GDP and employs more than 10 million people. The largest working is in services—39%, while the largest hire is in industry—almost 38% [13]. The use of immigrants as a human capital resource not only fills shortages in the sectoral labour markets, but also positively influences the sustainability of the development of enterprises and thus of regions.

The importance of the above issues, therefore, prompted the authors to tackle such a difficult research topic. The aim of the research undertaken was to identify the needs of entrepreneurs in the context of labour shortages in the local labour market and to supplement them with immigrants from Ukraine.

The focus was therefore on border enterprises from rural areas and located at the external border of Poland and the EU, due to their already mentioned economic situation. It was important to determine: in which sectors do border entrepreneurs look for migrants for work and what characteristics should migrant workers have (defining the profile of a migrant from the point of view of the needs of the entrepreneur).

In view of the above issues, the authors define the research objectives in the form of a research question:

Q1: is the main reason for employing migrants from Ukraine their specialised skills to fill shortages in sectoral labour markets?

Q2: is the lack of knowledge of the Polish language a significant barrier to employing migrants from Ukraine?

Q3: does hiring migrants from Ukraine improve the economic performance of border enterprises?

In order to answer the above questions, it became necessary to study the needs of entrepreneurs.

Human capital is an important element in the concept of sustainable development, which is important for rural regions. The location at Poland’s external borders, which are also the external borders of the EU, is also not without significance. Therefore, the model research area is Eastern Poland and its four border voivodeships, which have a strongly agricultural (rural) character.

Taking up the research topic is also an important issue for immigrants. It allows for their professional activation by matching their skills and qualifications to the needs reported by entrepreneurs. Therefore, a profile of a migrant worker from Ukraine (from the point of view of the entrepreneur and his needs) was created.

The topic of professional activation of migrants from Ukraine is gaining popularity in scientific works [32,33,34,35], but there is a lack of items focusing on the analysis of migrants characteristics from the point of view of entrepreneurs’ needs (from peripheral rural areas). In this article, the authors attempt to fill the perceived research gap.

2. Materials and Methods

The own research carried out for the purpose of this article was aimed at determining of the needs of entrepreneurs reporting on the labour needs of imigrants in rural peripheral regions, characterised by a weak economic situation and large population outflows. It has become important to indicate what are the real possibilities of taking up employment by migrants from Ukraine who meet the competence requirements of Polish entrepreneurs (relevant characteristics of a migrant).

The research was addressed to entrepreneurs in the border voivodeships of eastern Poland, i.e., Warmia-Masuria, Podlaskie, Lublin and Subcarpathia voivodeships. According to data from the Central Statistical Office (CSO), as of 1 January 2022, there were 318,554 enterprises in the selected voivodeships covering Poland’s (and the EU’s) eastern border (

Table 1. Number of non-financial enterprises from eastern Poland’s voivodeships as of 1 January 2022.

	Warmia-Masuria	Podlaskie	Lublin	Subcarpathia	Total
number of enterprises	77,003	62,057	88,103	91,391	318,554

Source: own work on the basis of [36].

).

The minimum sample size for the selected population of enterprises (N = 318,554), at the significance level α = 0.05, for an acceptable estimation error d equal to 5%, was 384 from the group of non-financial enterprises from the voivodeships of eastern Poland.

The sampling method used was therefore stratified random sampling, which is used when the structure of the general population is known. The sample selection required stratification to reflect the structure of the general population in terms of numbers. The selection of individuals for the sample, was made by quota to the known structure of the general population, ensuring the survey was representative. Entrepreneurs were selected at random. Dependent randomisation, without return, meant that a drawn element of the population participated in the draw only once. Thus, it could not be drawn again into the sample.

For the purposes of this study, a questionnaire was constructed, addressed to entrepreneurs from eastern Polish voivodeships, which was conducted in July-September 2023. It was realised as a 90% telephone interview and a 10% online survey. It covered 400 enterprises, 100 from each surveyed province. Of the 400 entities, 300 were small companies employing up to 10 employees, 73 enterprises employed from 10 to 50 people, 22 entities from 50 to 250 people, and 5 enterprises employed over 250 employees. The largest number of enterprises were in the construction industry (120 out of 400 surveyed enterprises), transport and storage (110), service activities (60), accommodation and catering (41) and health care and social assistance (23).

In the surveys, respondents were asked about:

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identifying characteristics of the immigrant worker that encourage and discourage their employment (22 features in total):

1. A source of acquiring additional specialists and qualified employees.

2. A source of obtaining additional unskilled employees.

3. The professional experience possessed by the migrant.

4. Greater availability of migrants compared to Polish workers.

5. Filling staff shortages/possibility of employment in more flexible forms.

6. Lower salary expectations than among Polish employees.

7. Migrants’ knowledge of foreign (eastern) markets.

8. Reducing production costs and company overhead costs/improving economic results.

9. Improves the work atmosphere and discipline.

10. Improving work efficiency and quality.

11. Employing migrants—a “motivator” for domestic employees.

12. Interpersonal competences of the migrant, willingness to improve own competences, ability to work in a team.

13. Job offers too specialized in relation to the migrant’s qualifications/too low professional qualifications.

14. The migrant’s attitude to work, early termination of the contract, being drunk at work.

15. The contracts must be terminated earlier.

16. The need to have documents confirming education.

17. Transport of migrants to work.

18. Problems with the migrant’s work pace/failure to follow orders.

19. Ignorance/poor knowledge of the language.

20. Problems with accepting migrants by Polish workers.

21. Existing competition.

22. Obtaining benefits from the state when employing migrants in Poland.

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indication of the border voivodeship where the company’s headquarters is located (four border voivodeships: Warmia-Masuria, Podlaskie, Lublin and Subcarpathia.

Correspondence analysis, which was used in this article, is a descriptive mining technique with a wide range of applications. Its aim is to find structures and patterns in the data collected during research [37]. The obtained results are clear, easy to interpret and graphically present [38,39,40]. This method in this article was intended to help determine the differences in entrepreneurs’ preferences regarding the characteristics of a worker-imigrant in the studied voivodeships. The advantage of correspondence analysis is that it enables the analysis of qualitative data from questionnaire surveys or interviews. You can also learn the structure of a multidimensional data set [37] and discover the relationships between the data and the presentation of their structure. This approach allows for easier access to numerical results and facilitates the formulation of research question requiring (statistical) verification in further stages of research [38]. All correspondence analysis calculations were performed in the Statistica program.

Statistca (the Statistica 13.3 PL statistical package) and Excel software (Office 365 A1 Plus for faculty, version 2404) were used to analyse the quantitative data. The results were presented descriptively and graphically in the form of tables and charts. The results of the analyses formed the basis for the verification of the research objectives and the formulation of the final conclusions.

3. Results

On the Polish labour market, in most sectors and professions, there has been for several years a greater demand for employment than supply of workers. For employers, this means a lack of opportunities to meet staffing needs in the local labour market. As the study area is a rural border region of both Poland and the EU, this creates a number of opportunities. It makes it possible to meet labour shortages through migrant labour (cross-border labour flows and due to the border location).

According to own research, in 55% of the enterprises migrants worked more than 40 h, and in almost 42% of the cases they received a wage above the national average. The lowest national wage was received by 23% of migrants. Almost 75% of the surveyed com-panies had up to 10 employees, more than 18% up to 50 employees and less than 7% over 50 employees. As many as 76% of companies expect the output/input ratio to be higher after hiring migrants (from Ukraine) (positive Q3 verification).

Entrepreneurs are most likely to employ migrants in the construction, hospitality, trade, municipal and hairdressing services, cosmetics, cleaning, care and as machine and equipment operators. 30% of the companies surveyed were related to the construction in-dustry, 27% to transport and warehousing, 15% to individual service activities, 10% to accommodation and food services, and almost 6% to health care and social assistance (Figure 2). The above results achieved one of the main objectives of the research undertaken.

The feature of migrants that encourages employers from Eastern Poland to employ them (

Table 2. Profile of an immigrant worker from the entrepreneur’s point of view (n = 400).

Factors Shaping the Profile of an Immigrant Employee from the Entrepreneur’s Point of View	Eastern Poland (n = 400)	Lublin (100)	Subcarpathia (100)	Podlaskie (100)	Warmia-Masuria (100)
positive attributes
source of additional specialists, qualified employees	51%	35%	38%	94%	36%
source of additional non-qualified workers	39%	18%	46%	53%	37%
migrant’s work experience	31%	38%	21%	44%	24%
higher availability of migrants in comparison to Polish employees	41%	17%	33%	69%	46%
filling employment gaps/possibility of employment in more flexible forms	32%	11%	27%	73%	17%
lower salary expectations than Polish employees	27%	13%	29%	36%	29%
foreign migrants’ knowledge of (eastern) markets	4%	1%	3%	11%	1%
reduction of production costs and general overheads of the company/improved economic performance	12%	10%	19%	11%	6%
migrant influences on improvement of working atmosphere and discipline	4%	5%	0%	12%	0%
improved productivity and quality of work	12%	10%	19%	8%	12%
employment of migrants—‘motivator’ for national workers	4%	1%	4%	6%	3%
migrant’s interpersonal skills, willingness to improve own competences, ability to work in a team	1%	2%	1%	2%	0%
negative attributes
too specialised job offer for migrant’s qualifications/too low qualifications	1%	1%	1%	1%	0%
migrant’s attitude to work, termination of contracts before the deadline, inebriation	2%	1%	1%	4%	0%
need for proof of education/nostrification	1%	1%	1%	2%	0%
problems with migrant’s pace of work/ failure to follow instructions	1%	0%	1%	1%	1%
lack of knowledge/poor language skills	22%	9%	37%	4%	39%
problems with acceptance of migrants by Polish employees	4%	1%	6%	1%	8%
existing competition	5%	5%	4%	1%	9%
obtaining benefits from the state when employing migrants in Poland	2%	2%	1%	2%	2%

Source: own research.

) is primarily the perception of migrants as a source of workers, both skilled (specialists) (51% of the surveyed entrepreneurs) and unskilled (32%). This makes it possible to fill the shortage of skilled workers and gives the possibility to employ them in more flexible forms (32%). Thus, the first research question (Q1), which refers to the fact that the main reason for employing immigrants from Ukraine is to fill shortages of skilled people in the sectoral labour markets, is positively verified. Undoubtedly, the advantage of an immigrant worker, from the entrepreneur’s point of view, is the greater availability of migrants (41%) and lower salary expectations (27%) than Polish workers. These factors (characteristics of the immigrant) are so important that they allow for the reduction of production costs and overall costs of the enterprise, thus improving economic performance (12%) and improving productivity and quality of work (12%). This allows positive verification of research question 3 (Q3) and confirms that the purpose of employing immigrant workers from Ukraine is to improve the financial situation of the enterprise. And improving the productivity and quality of work has a positive impact on the sustainability of the company, which can thus ensure the professional and financial stability of employees. For almost 31% of entrepreneurs, the migrant’s work experience was important.

Entrepreneurs also see the characteristics of migrant workers from Ukraine as a barrier to employing foreigners (Table 2). This applies especially to the lack of knowledge or poor knowledge of the Polish language (12%) (positive verification of Q2). This is important as it can generate misunderstandings both on the employee—(immigrant)—employer line through misunderstanding of instructions as well as on the employee—(immigrant)—employee (autochthonous) line and cause problems with the acceptance of migrants by Polish employees (4%). It should not be forgotten that for local workers immigrants represent com-petition. On the other hand, the employment of immigrants may become a ‘motivator’ for local workers (4%) and improve work discipline (4%).

Entrepreneurs are not uncritical of migrant workers. They also see characteristics that can become barriers to their employment. These are, first and foremost, the attitude of so-me immigrant workers to work, which manifests itself in the termination of contracts be-fore the deadline or coming to work or providing work under the influence of alcohol (2%), as well as problems with the pace of the immigrant worker’s work or failure to fol-low instructions (1%). The need for proof of immigrant workers’ education is also a pro-blem (1%).

Obtaining an answer to the question what characteristics of a worker-imigrant are important for an entrepreneur allowed the creation of a profile of an immigrant worker (the second main goal of the study).

Multivariate correspondence analysis (Figure 3) was used to graphically represent the relationship between the variables under study (characteristics considered when hiring immigrants depending on the location of the company). It turns out that the relationship studied is statistically significant, with a chi-square statistic value of 122.04 [p = 0.000]. The coordinates of the rows (province) and columns (factors considered when hiring an immigrant worker) were coded (described in Materials and Methods and additionally in the notes under Figure 3).

Correspondence analysis allows us to examine the co-occurrence of the studied variables along two dimensions. It was examined how well these two dimensions describe the relationship under study. The results indicated that 90.67% of the analysis presented in the graph explains the relationship between the study variables (Figure 3).

Correspondence analysis shows (Figure 3) that there are differences in the preferences of entrepreneurs regarding the characteristics of immigrant workers from Ukraine depending on the voivodeship. Interestingly, they also do not depend on the location of the voivodeship in relation to the Polish-Ukrainian border. Thus, entrepreneurs from the two voivodeships bordering Ukraine (Lublin and Subcarpathian) have different requirements for immigrant workers to be employed. In the Lublin, it is primarily the professional experience of the immigrant employee that is important to the employer (3) and receiving subsidies from the state is an incentive when hiring migrants (22). As a barrier, entrepreneurs from the Lublin indicate too low professional qualifications of migrants (13). On the other hand, in the case of entrepreneurs from Subcarpathian Voivodeship, a migrant worker is a source of unskilled workers (2), whose salary expectations are lower than those of Polish workers (6). Entrepreneurs from the Subcarpathia Voivodeship expect that the employment of migrant workers from Ukraine will improve the productivity and quality of work (10) and reduce production costs and company overheads, which will improve the economic performance of the company (8). As a barrier to hiring an immigrant employee, employers in Subcarpathian voivodeship indicate problems with disobeying instructions given by the supervisor and the problem with maintaining the pace of work (18).

In the case of Podlaskie Voivodeship (bordering Belarus, Lithuania, and Russia), entrepreneurs perceive migrant workers as a source of additional specialists and skilled workers (1), a complement to staff shortages and the possibility to employ them in more flexible forms (5). Employers in the Podlaskie Voivodeship point to their knowledge of foreign markets, especially eastern markets, as an advantage of employing migrants (7). Among the most serious barriers, they point to the migrant’s inappropriate attitude to work, often manifested by working under the influence of alcohol, abandoning work (14), not having documents confirming education (16).

It turns out that only entrepreneurs from the Warmia-Masuria (bordering Russia) have requirements for employees that coincide with those of employers from the Subcarpathian Voivodeship (bordering Ukraine) (similar migrant-profile).

4. Discussion

The role and position of migrants on the labor market and among entrepreneurs can be identified through the prism of: motives for employing migrants by entrepreneurs; benefits and barriers to employing migrants; requirements related to a specific profession/job position (according to the economic sector) in which migrants are employed and the substitute role of migrants in relation to native workers. The above aspects are confirmed in the literature [41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48]. Based on the above elements, the authors created their own profile of an immigrant worker, considering the reasons for the migrant’s employment. For an entrepreneur—especially from a border region—the lack of Polish workers applying for work and the fact that migrants have skills (e.g., language) not available to the native workforce become crucial. Equally important is assistance in implementing new standards and technologies in the company, employment in highly qualified positions (e.g., managerial) or maintaining employment stability. Migrants are more familiar with foreign markets. Entrepreneurs also expect to accept employment in more flexible forms and want to reduce labour costs.

The use of immigrants as a source of labour is noticeable, among others, in rural bor-der regions, peripheral regions (due to location, but also in relation to core regions). There, the effects of receiving immigrants and compensating for the loss of human capital beco-me noticeable, as the shortage of labour is offset by immigration. Such an example is the border region of eastern Poland and cross-border migration from Ukraine. It is therefore crucial that immigrants there respond to the requirements of the local labour market [49] and the expectations/needs of entrepreneurs.

Own research (Results) indicates the need to fill gaps in human resources, especially in the sectoral labour markets. Entrepreneurs are most in need of immigrant workers in the construction, transport and service sectors (e.g., hotels, catering, care for the elderly and children). They are mainly looking for skilled workers (51% of responses), but due to the large outflow of people of working age from these areas, also unskilled workers (32%). Furthermore, entrepreneurs expect immigrant workers to be more available and willing to work in flexible forms (32%). Thus, the first research question (Q1), which refers to the main reason for employing immigrants (lack of skilled people in the sectoral labour markets), is positively verified. Another important feature of an immigrant responding to the needs of entrepreneurs is knowledge of the Polish language. Because the lack of this skill becomes a barrier to sustainable development of the local enterprise (it is important for 12% of entrepreneurs), which allows positively verifying the second research question (Q2).

Employing an immigrant worker with lower wage expectations than domestic wor-kers (27% of the responses obtained) allows for a reduction in pro-duction costs and ove-rall costs of the company, thus improving economic performance (12%) and improving productivity and quality of work (12%). Such results of our own research positively verify research question 3 (Q3) and confirm that the purpose of employing immigrants is to improve the financial situation of the company.

The type of employment of migrants is also related to their role in the labour market: whether as a force pushing out native workers, causing an increase in unemployment and a decrease in wages, or as a force supplementing the Polish labour market (e.g., during the summer season), occupying positions vacated by Poles or created by the expansion of the company (according to the dual labour market theory). Moreover, it turns out that an en-trepreneur needs, on the one hand, unskilled workers (in agriculture, construction, indu-stry, commerce, horticulture and catering) and, on the other hand, managers, advisors and experts and specialists (e.g., IT specialists, lawyers, managers).

At this point, it is worth mentioning that before the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2022, Ukrainian imigrants (mainly men) usually worked in Poland in the construction, trans-port and ICT sectors. After the outbreak of the war, due to the return of men to Ukraine, more than 40 per cent of Polish companies mainly in the construction, transport and ICT sectors reported a labour shortage. The influx of female refugees from Ukraine did not al-leviate the labour shortage on the Polish labour market. This is because the women, who arrived mainly with children, focused their professional interest on other industries, i.e., hotel, catering or trade. This is confirmed by CSO analyses [36,50], which show that there has been a decrease in the labour force in the construction, transport, real estate services and manufacturing industries. On the other hand, in industries such as retail trade and accommodation and catering, the situation on the Polish labour market has improved (inflow of female refugees from Ukraine). Therefore, Polish employers, due to staff shorta-ges, declare their willingness to employ foreigners—imigrants from Ukraine—and support them in entering the labour market. They offer assistance in their professional ac-tivation, development or adaptation to work in Poland [19], e.g., long-term (over 3 months), temporary (up to 3 months) and part-time work, mentoring, language courses, paid in-ternships/apprenticeships, vocational training or even setting up company crèches and kindergartens for refugee children [51].

Polish companies report a number of barriers to employing Ukrainians. The most frequently mentioned are the language barrier related to refugees’ lack of knowledge of Polish, the unregulated legal situation and the problem of reaching people with the necessary qualifications [51]. This is also confirmed by our own re-search, which shows that lack of or poor knowledge of the Polish language is a barrier to hiring an immigrant worker (12% of respondents’ answers).

Despite the positive importance of migration and the approach in the economic lite-rature that the presence of immigrants has a stabilising effect on the economies of host countries and thus border regions [33,35,47,52,53,54], its recognition in sustainable development policies has been challenged by many researchers [55,56]. It has also reinforced the concern that a significant influx of immigrants (accepting lower wages) poses a threat to local workers. However, migration can potentially act as a strategy for sustainable economic development in the periphery, as border immigrants (e.g., Ukrainian) tend to have similar levels of education to local/national workers [49]. Moreover, local employers (border entrepreneurs) are well aware of the need to employ immigrant workers. They are aware of their potential. Therefore, they use this type of migration as replacement employment, which can become an economic strategy for sustainable development in the periphery with significant potential. However, this requires further attention and research.

The literature indicates that the role and position of migrants in the labour market can be identified not only by motives and benefits for the entrepreneur. It can also be analysed through the competence requirements of industries [41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48].

5. Conclusions

On the basis of their own research and on the basis of an analysis of the literature on the subject, the authors drew general conclusions:

• Entrepreneurs are most likely to hire skilled (specialist) immigrant workers with work experience in the sectoral markets. Only in the case of large staff shortages and the availability of immigrant workers with preferred skills are they willing to hire unskilled workers. However, this is strictly dependent on the specifics of the industry;
• Entrepreneurs prefer to employ immigrants in more flexible forms of work;
• Entrepreneurs expect immigrants to be more available and to have lower wage requirements compared to domestic workers, which is expected to translate into lower labour costs and improved economic performance;
• Entrepreneurs expect the employment of immigrants to improve productivity and quality of work by influencing the improvement of labour discipline in general, as immigrants will provide healthy competition to domestic workers;
• Unfamiliarity or poor knowledge of the language of the host country becomes a major constraint;
• Important barriers to employing an immigrant are: terminating contracts early, coming to work or providing work under the influence of alcohol, problems with the pace of work, not following instructions;
• Another problem is the lack of confirmation of the professional education of immigrant workers;
• The entrepreneur should eliminate misunderstandings both between the (immigrant) employee and the employer and between the (immigrant) employee and the (indigenous) employee.

According to the authors, the role and position of migrants in the labour market can be identified through:

• the entrepreneur’s motives for hiring migrants (as a need to supplement the work-force), as shown in the article (Q1);
• the benefits achieved by entrepreneurs in relation to hiring migrants (and the ac-companying constraints), as also discussed by the authors of this article (Q3);
• the competence requirements associated with the specific industry in which mi-grants are employed, which should be a direction for future research.

The article identifies both the industries in which immigrants are employed and the qualities they should possess. However, it does not assign specific competencies of the immigrant worker to the industries identified by entrepreneurs.

4.

the role of migrants in relation to native workers. This issue should also become an area for future research.

The research and literature analysis conducted by the authors allow us to consider the issue of cross-border migration as an element of the development strategy of border regions.

The authors demonstrate that this type of migration has an impact not only demographically, but also socially and, above all, economically (if only from the point of view of business development in the country and the border region). When employing migrants—foreign workers—entrepreneurs expect an increase in employment, access to EU funds. They also want to acquire new contractors and new markets (especially in eastern Europe). By employing a foreign worker, they hope to professionalise their business and broaden their company’s offer.

The authors indicate that political and economic instability in Ukraine affects the professional activity of Ukrainians in Poland. In order to respond to the challenges of the contemporary labour market, it is important to match the demand and supply side of the local markets. This will thus stabilize the situation of both employees and employers, and thus achieve sustainable development of the company and the region.

Despite some differences in the needs reported by entrepreneurs depending on the location of the company, the general profile of the immigrant created by the authors. It can be applied to other border regions in the world.

The authors would like to emphasise that it is extremely important to understand the needs of host countries’ entrepreneurs. Such a large scale of the phenomenon of interna-tional migration requires the creation of appropriate policies, if only for the sustainable development of rural border regions. This applies not only to the reception of immigrants, but also to their entry into national, and therefore local, labour markets. It is therefore significant to realise that all stakeholders can benefit. Employers-entrepreneurs fill the labour shortage, migrants gain stability and social and economic security (getting a job) and the state/regions gain citizens who will bolster the productive group (48% of immigrants from Ukraine are of working age) and rejuvenate society (a large group of migrants are children).

Future research could cover all Polish voivodeships (16), which would help identify regional differences in entrepreneurs’ requirements when employing immigrant workers. An interesting direction would also be to compare the requirements of entrepreneurs with the requirements (and qualifications) of the migrants themselves.

The authors propose the creation of databases taking into account the qualifications and skills of immigrants arriving in Poland/EU who are willing to work. Due to the protection of personal data, it seems to be a good practice to encode sensitive data and search for employees only based on industry, qualifications and skills.

5.

Important that policymakers (at national, regional and global levels) continuously monitor migrant flows and the level of support from host country stakeholders (taking into account in particular businesses). The introduction of concessions and coordination of the distribution of aid funds becomes necessary to improve the situation of migrants at the local (national) and global levels in terms of socio-economic qualifications and skills.