Poland's job market turns positive: 259,000 postings, all ten cities growing

2026-07-16

In June 2026, employers posted 258,680 new job ads across the 50 largest recruitment portals in Poland, 4% more than a year earlier. That is the first positive year-over-year reading in more than a year. The latest, 72nd edition of Grant Thornton’s “Job Offers in Poland” report, prepared with Element as the technology partner, shows a market starting to regain momentum. In the previous edition, covering May 2026, the yearly dynamic had only just leveled off at zero, so June’s growth is another step forward. Below are the key data from the report and my take. Note: the full report is a Polish-language PDF, so keep that in mind before you click through. If you read Polish, you can also read the original version of this article here.

Key data from the report

June 2026 brought the first clearly positive year-over-year reading in more than a year. Employers posted 258,680 job ads, 4% more than in June 2025 (249,000), the highest annual growth rate since May 2025. The three-month rolling average, which smooths out monthly swings, came in at 1%, also the best in a year. Month over month, the market shrank by 3%, or about 8,500 postings, a typical, mild summer dip after the spring rebound.

The improvement has been building gradually. April was still negative, May flattened out to zero, and June finally turned clearly positive. Still, some caution is warranted, because the month-over-month trend keeps softening slightly, and global economic uncertainty could slow further gains.

Cities: all ten in positive territory

For the first time in a long while, all ten monitored cities posted year-over-year growth in June. The strongest rebounds came in Wroclaw (+12%), Krakow (+10%), and Gdansk (+6%). Large cities usually lead the broader market trend, so a unanimous increase across the board is a strong signal for the months ahead.

City	New offers VI 2026 (thousands)	YoY change	Offers per 1,000 residents
Warsaw	41.2	+4%	22.1
Krakow	17.4	+10%	21.5
Wroclaw	13.7	+12%	20.3
Gdansk	10.2	+6%	20.9
Poznan	8.9	+3%	16.5
Katowice	6.8	+5%	24.3
Lodz	5.2	+4%	8.1
Szczecin	4.5	+2%	11.5
Lublin	3.7	+5%	11.2
Bydgoszcz	3.4	+1%	10.4

Katowice again led on a per-capita basis with 24.3 offers per 1,000 residents, with Warsaw close behind at 22.1. Lodz came in lowest at 8.1 offers per 1,000 residents, even though its absolute postings grew by 4%. Bydgoszcz posted the fewest offers in absolute terms, just 3,400, but even there the market finally turned, up 1% year over year.

Industries: healthcare leads growth again

Every monitored industry grew year over year, but healthcare led by far, with growth reaching 13%. IT (+9%) and legal (+6%) also posted clear demand increases, sectors that were still declining just a few months ago.

Industry	YoY dynamics	What’s behind it
Healthcare	+13%	Staff shortages and an aging population
IT	+9%	Demand returning after a long slump
Legal	+6%	Rebound after months of stagnation
HR	+5%	More internal recruitment
Marketing / Sales	+3%	Gradual improvement in sentiment
Blue-collar	+3%	Slow recovery from earlier declines
Finance	+2%	Market stabilizing

Blue-collar roles, the hardest hit by earlier declines, also turned positive (+3%), even though their recovery is still slower than in other sectors. This is the first month in a while where none of the seven tracked industries posted a year-over-year decline.

Benefits: the slow return to normal continues

The average number of benefits per job offer rose to 5.7 in June, the second straight monthly increase after April’s low of just 5.3. The figure is still below the 6.2 to 6.9 range typical of recent years, but the gap keeps narrowing. The most common benefits remain medical packages and training, each offered in 63% of postings, with sports packages close behind at 54%.

Requirements moved in the same direction, up to an average of five per posting. Professional experience remains the most common condition, expected in 69% of postings, followed by education at 53%. Foreign-language requirements rose to 35%, and availability requirements to 28%.

My take: a solid, but still uncertain signal

Reading June’s return to positive growth as good news feels right to me, and not only because of what the report shows. Ahead of the summer, I saw a similar pickup among Element’s own clients: more companies are actively recruiting again, and new system rollouts grew faster than in previous months. I think these are two independent signals reinforcing each other.

That said, I would stop short of calling this a turning point. Month over month, postings are still edging down, and the three-month rolling average sits at just 1%, barely above statistical noise. All ten cities grew year over year, but the scale of growth in most of them is modest. My guess is the next two or three months will tell us whether June marks the start of a lasting recovery or just a brief seasonal bounce.

Download the report

You can download the full report, “Job Offers in Poland. Edition LXXII: June 2026,” with commentary from Magdalena Marcinowska (Grant Thornton) and myself, below. Note: the report itself is written in Polish only.

Download the report (PDF, in Polish)

The report includes: