Warsaw currently has the lowest registered unemployment rate among all regional capitals in Poland, tied with Poznań at 1.6%. However, the reassuring headline figure conceals a clear cooling in labour demand. The average monthly number of vacancies reported to Warsaw’s labour offices fell by 46% compared with the same period a year earlier, while the number of registered unemployed people increased by more than 11% year on year.
Employment: Industry Expands While Professional Services Record the Sharpest Decline
Average employment in Warsaw’s enterprise sector stood at 1.1067 million full-time equivalent positions in June 2026. This was only marginally higher than in May, up by 300 jobs, or 0.03%, but 7,500 lower than a year earlier, representing a decline of 0.7%.
On a monthly basis, employment increased in administrative and support service activities by 0.8% and in real estate activities by 0.2%. The largest decline was recorded in construction, where employment fell by 0.6%.
The year-on-year picture is more pronounced. The steepest decline was recorded in professional, scientific and technical activities, where employment fell by 7.2%. This category includes consulting, legal services and research and development, all of which are important segments of Warsaw’s white-collar labour market.
Employment also declined in real estate activities and accommodation and food services, both by 3.1%, as well as in trade, where it fell by 2%.
The only significant increase was recorded in industry, where employment rose by 5.2% year on year, followed by construction with growth of 1%.
Registered Unemployment Rises Despite a Record-Low Rate
At the end of June 2026, 22,269 people were registered as unemployed in Warsaw. This was 346 fewer than in the previous month, a decline of 1.5%, but 2,218 more than a year earlier, representing an annual increase of 11.1%.
Women accounted for 48.2% of all registered unemployed people, or 10,734 individuals. Their number increased by as much as 14.9% year on year, faster than the increase recorded for the unemployed population as a whole.
Despite this growth, Warsaw’s registered unemployment rate remained the lowest in Poland at 1.6%, unchanged from the previous month and only slightly above the 1.5% recorded a year earlier.
For comparison, the unemployment rate in the Mazowieckie Voivodeship as a whole stood at 4.4%, up from 4% a year earlier, while the national rate reached 5.8%, compared with 5.1% in June 2025.
Warsaw therefore remains an exceptional low-unemployment market, although the number of registered unemployed people is rising faster than in most other major Polish cities.
A total of 2,758 people registered as unemployed in June, compared with 3,081 in May, while 3,104 people were removed from the register, up from 2,770 a month earlier.
Of those removed from the register, 1,544 found employment, while 1,178 lost their unemployed status after failing to contact the labour office for at least 90 days.
Among those newly registered, 34.8%, or 959 people, were registering for the first time. This was the highest proportion among cities in the Mazowieckie Voivodeship, where the corresponding average was 30.4%.
A total of 87.5% of registered unemployed people were not entitled to unemployment benefits, slightly more than the 86.1% recorded a year earlier.
Job Vacancies Decline Sharply
The most telling trend concerns labour demand reported to public employment offices.
In January 2025, Warsaw’s labour offices received 3,888 job vacancies. By June 2026, the number had fallen to 1,827, despite a partial recovery during the first half of 2026.
The average monthly number of reported vacancies declined from approximately 2,908 in the first half of 2025 to around 1,562 in the first half of 2026, a fall of 46%.
At the same time, the number of registered unemployed people per available vacancy remained stable at 16 in June 2026, the same as a year earlier.
This suggests that the decline in reported job offers has been accompanied by a reduction in the number of vacancies still available for referral, rather than by a significant increase in the imbalance between candidates and job opportunities.
Warsaw Compared with Other Regional Capitals
Among the 18 cities included in Statistics Poland’s June comparison, Warsaw and Poznań had the lowest registered unemployment rates in the country, both at 1.6%.
They were followed by Katowice at 1.8% and Wrocław at 2.5%.
At the opposite end of the ranking were Białystok, with an unemployment rate of 5.9%, Łódź at 5.8% and Kielce at 5.6%.
| City | Registered unemployed (thousand) | Unemployment rate | Monthly job vacancies | Unemployed per vacancy | Employment (thousand) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Warsaw | 22.3 | 1.6% | 1,827 | 16 | 1,106.7 |
| Poznań | 5.4 | 1.6% | 214 | 27 | 166.5 |
| Katowice | 3.8 | 1.8% | 267 | 16 | 126.7 |
| Wrocław | 10.1 | 2.5% | 731 | 8 | 195.0 |
| Bydgoszcz | 4.3 | 2.8% | 270 | 20 | 52.5 |
| Kraków | 14.6 | 2.8% | 1,061 | 7 | 243.8 |
| Olsztyn | 2.4 | 2.9% | 162 | 20 | 25.0 |
| Opole | 2.4 | 3.1% | 162 | 6 | 28.2 |
| Gdańsk | 8.5 | 3.3% | 990 | 10 | 121.7 |
| Toruń | 3.4 | 3.8% | 286 | 13 | 36.8 |
| Szczecin | 7.3 | 4.1% | 260 | 23 | 57.4 |
| Lublin | 7.6 | 4.3% | 241 | 70 | 71.1 |
| Zielona Góra | 3.0 | 4.3% | 67 | 31 | 21.8 |
| Gorzów Wielkopolski | 2.4 | 4.4% | 174 | 11 | 19.4 |
| Rzeszów | 5.4 | 4.4% | 442 | 21 | 43.6 |
| Kielce | 5.4 | 5.6% | 241 | 12 | 30.2 |
| Łódź | 19.6 | 5.8% | 359 | 79 | 127.4 |
| Białystok | 7.9 | 5.9% | 494 | 17 | 38.2 |
For companies recruiting in Warsaw, the signals are mixed. The unemployment rate remains the lowest in the country, meaning that the pool of readily available candidates registered with labour offices is still small relative to the size of the market.
At the same time, the sharp decline in reported vacancies and the contraction in professional, scientific and technical employment, down 7.2% year on year, suggest that consulting, legal services and research and development are being affected by the slowdown in labour demand more strongly than lower-paid sectors.
Data source: Statistics Poland, Statistical Office in Warsaw, Warsaw Statistics 6/2026, data generated on 3 August 2026 and reflecting information available as of 27 July 2026. Original analysis based on Statistics Poland data.
Methodological note: A new Act on the Labour Market and Employment Services entered into force on 1 June 2025, changing the rules governing the registration and recording of unemployed people. This may affect the comparability of data with periods preceding that date.
Source: CEO.com.pl
