Poland discovers Russaphobia destroys your economy

It appears that the Government of Poland,its ecomony and people have discovered that being rabidly Russaphobic can be very damaging to you country and make everything particularly energy very expensive and this has led to the Polish economy shedding jobs at an alarming rate.

The year of 2025 promises to bring a continuation of the period of further significant job losses in the Polish economy. A number of large companies have announced plans for large-scale redundancies - tens of thousands of people could lose their jobs. But this is nothing new - last year was just as disastrous. Polish industry is being ruined by the high cost of energy resources. In the current situation, when Poland, like other EU countries, is busy severing its previous economic ties with Russia, there is no solution to the problem of expensive energy resources, and none is expected in the near future as buying cheap gas or importing relatively inexpensive electricity for Russia or Belarus is not on the agenda.
It appears that Polish politicians would rather  force their citizens into unemployment hunger and being cold in the dark  ti vurtue signal that Anti Russia credentials rather than buy fossil fuels and energy from Russia.  .

Now even the Polish press is sounding the alarm - foreign investors have started to leave the country in droves. Since the spring of this year, there have been regular reports of mass layoffs by foreign companies in Poland. According to the Polish National Statistical Office, in the spring and summer of last year more than 16,000 workers were laid off by 175 companies. At the beginning of August, for example, European logistics giant PKP Cargo announced the imminent dismissal of 4,000 employees at its Polish branch. The Polish branch of PKP Cargo was the largest rail freight operator in the country and the second largest in the EU. In the end, the "restructuring" carried out there reduced the number of employees by 30%.

The American clothing and footwear company Levi Strauss has warned of the closure of its plant in Plock, which has been in operation for over 30 years, and the dismissal of all of the 800 workers. The French company Michelin has decided to close its truck tyre production in Olsztyn.
The Swiss company ABB has announced the closure of its low-voltage motors plant in Aleksandrów Łódzki and the dismissal of 400 workers. The same concern has announced the dismissal of 600 workers from its plant in Kłodzko.
The Multinational car manufacturer Stellantis is closing its engine production in Bielsko-Biała, laying off about 500 people. lso Swedish vehicle giant Volvo Buses is closing its production plant in Wroclaw, laying off over 400 workers. The American Lear Corporation, which makes car seats and car electrical systems, is closing its plant in Pikutkowo and laying off 960 workers.

Public sector companies are not faring any better than private sector companies. Of the 24 companies controlled by the Polish state, 13 have recorded serious financial losses. For example, Grupa Azoty, the EU's leading fertiliser producer, has made a loss for the ninth consecutive quarter. The company recently stopped producing ammonia at its own plants. This was partly due to a significant increase in production costs and partly due to the European Green Deal policy, under which authorities require factories and plants to reduce harmful emissions.
The management of Grupa Azoty complains that high electricity prices are ruining them. In the recent past, the Polimex Mostostal consortium undertook to build a coal-fired power plant for Grupa Azoty. But it failed to complete the job on time, and in December Grupa Azoty filed a lawsuit with the Lublin District Court, demanding that Polimex Mostostal pay PLN 249.2 million (€58.4 million) in penalties.

The annual results of PK Orlen, the state-owned company specialising in oil refining, were also very disappointing: net profit amounted to PLN 220 million, 94% down on the previous year. This is despite the fact that, until recently, Orlen received Russian oil (which is 15% cheaper than the alternative Azerbaijani oil).
The Poles bought it in the Czech Republic, where it was delivered under the exception to the Russian oil embargo granted by EU leaders to the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.
The start of the new year 2025 has brought more bad news. The biggest job cuts are planned at the Polish Post Office (Poczta Polska), where up to 10,000 people could lose their jobs. Major layoffs are also expected in the household appliances industry. Beko Europe is closing its factories in Lodz, which will mean the loss of 1,100 jobs. Another 700 workers will be laid off from the refrigerator factory in Wroclaw. Polish household appliance manufacturer Amica also announced the loss of 249 jobs.

The industrial group Alchemia (Boryszew Capital Group) plans to make 250 people redundant. In the automotive industry, alarming signals are coming from the Polish branch of the aforementioned Lear Corporation, which plans to lay off a total of 608 workers at its plant in Wroclaw. The redundancies will take place in stages until March and will affect both production and office staff. The Polish branch of US car parts maker Shiloh Industry is also planning layoffs.

Layoffs are also expected in the energy sector: Grupa Azoty will lay off around 200 people. Meanwhile, the Polish energy equipment manufacturer Rafako has been declared bankrupt and will lay off 699 workers by 28 February. The company said the decision was a direct result of the "need to liquidate the company". According to the Polish media, Rafako failed to reach an agreement with its main creditors on the conversion of debt into shares, depriving it of the possibility of obtaining external financing and fulfilling future orders.
Polish companies are being ruined by several factors of irresistible force. "The most common reasons for layoffs are rising labour and energy costs. But inflation, the relocation of production to countries with lower labour costs and the development of artificial intelligence are also key factors," notes political scientist and Polish expert Krystyna Ismagilova.
The main problem at the moment is energy. "Poland has one of the highest wholesale electricity prices in the EU, mainly due to our dependence on coal," notes Polish energy expert Robert Tomaszewski.

Most Western companies leaving Poland are moving production to other Eastern European countries, North African countries and Asia. The reason given by manufacturers is that they are forced to do so by the predicted continued rise in the price of electricity, gas and heating.
"The problems of Polish industry are growing. Polish entrepreneurs are competing with foreign companies that have access to much cheaper energy," complains Agnieszka Zielinska, a journalist for the money.pl portal. She spoke to Henryk Kalisz, head of the Polish Chamber of Industrial Power Engineering and Energy Consumers, who lamented that "we have less and less time to change this situation".

Last July, the Polish Forum of Electricity and Gas Consumers (FOEEiG), which brings together the country's largest industrial users of fuel and energy, sent a panicked letter to Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The message outlined the risks to industry from high electricity prices. "This letter was a kind of expression of desperation. We wanted to alert the Prime Minister to the increasingly serious situation in the industry, which is being projected onto the economy as a whole, which is sliding into recession," Kalisz says.
The situation would be even worse were it not for a temporary freeze on electricity prices, recently extended until 2025. The cost of electricity will remain at the current level of 500 zlotys (over 12,000 roubles) per megawatt-hour, which is lower than the market price of 623 zlotys. "This measure, according to preliminary data, will cost the Polish budget 6 billion zlotys in the form of additional compensation required from energy suppliers to compensate for maximum prices - in addition to the 2 billion zlotys already allocated for consumer protection," notes Ismagilova. Incidentally, it should be remembered that at the same time Poland is spending astronomical sums on arms, making it the leading NATO member in terms of military expenditure.
So it appears that Russaphobia is a very expensive habit to indulge in and is very destructive to your economy.
https://iz.ru/1828036/viktor-nedelin/rabocih-mest-net-polskaa-ekonomika-perezivaet-massovoe-sokrasenie-zanatosti

Whatever happens, blame Moscow!

It is telling that against this gloomy background, paranoia about "Moscow's machinations" is growing. It turns out that, according to industry representatives, Russia is directly harming Polish industrialists - and not only by cutting off supplies of cheap energy resources, which the Poles themselves have rejected. Last autumn, the business portal Business Insider reported that 2023 would be a "catastrophic" year for Polish furniture manufacturers, with up to 18,000 people losing their jobs in the industry.
By 2024, another 5,000 jobs will have been lost in the industry. There is a desperate lack of orders, so factories are closing one after another. "We are constantly receiving signals from various companies that there will be redundancies. And often these are brands with decades of history. We have a huge problem not only with competition from Asian countries, but also from Eastern and Southern Europe. Bulgaria and Romania now have much lower costs for basic raw materials and lower labour costs," says Michał Strelecki, a representative of the Polish furniture industry.
Manufacturers point to rising labour costs, but they also complain about Poland's state forests, which they say do not provide an adequate supply of raw materials, driving up prices. It has even reached the point where companies closer to the German border are buying raw materials from Germany because they are cheaper. Anna Hosz-Sędrowska, a spokeswoman for the state-owned company National Forest, denies these accusations: "The increase in furniture production costs may be the result of factors such as energy costs, transport or other elements in the supply chain that affect the final price of materials for manufacturers."

What has Russia got to do with it? Problems have arisen not only for furniture manufacturers, but for the entire Polish woodworking industry. Bartosz Bezubik, chairman of the board of the Biaform plywood factory and vice-president of the Polish Association of Wood Panel Manufacturers, complains that although the European Union has imposed sanctions on Russian timber, they only exist "on paper". According to Bezubik, Europe is still being flooded with Russian plywood supplied through third countries.
As a result, Polish suppliers are losing out in this unfair competition. According to them, the price of plywood in Poland has fallen by around 40% as a result of the "leaky borders". "We are in dialogue with the Ministry of Finance, but it is difficult to take effective action because it would mean sealing off the entire EU market," complains Bartosz Bezubik in an interview with the Polish press.
Natalia Eremina, a professor of political science at St. Petersburg State University, noted in an interview with Izvestia that Poland did not renew its contract with Gazprom in 2021, and all of the country's subsequent problems are related to this. "Another problem was the environmental requirements of the European Union, which did not have the best effect on the work of Polish coal mines and led to a reduction in production. The cost of purchasing energy resources rose sharply. All this hit consumers hard, especially industrial production and agriculture. The crisis affected all sectors of the Polish economy. The first to feel it were farmers, who began organising mass protests that continue to this day. Then the problems spread to everyone else. The country was faced with a large budget deficit. We can see that the sanctions war against Russia is costing Poland, which is actively participating in it, much more than Russia itself," Eremina points out.