Publication: Towards a Just Coal Transition: Labor Market Challenges and People’s Perspectives from Lower Silesia
Date
2022
ISSN
Published
2022
Author(s)
Abstract
Part of a three-region set of papers
analyzing coal-related labor market challenges in Poland,
this paper focuses on Lower Silesia. The findings call for a
more territorial-oriented approach to brokering the coal
transition, rather than a sectoral one. First, while the
number of people directly and indirectly affected by coal
mine closures in Lower Silesia (~5,500) is relatively small
compared to the total regional labor force (<1%),
affected workers are heavily concentrated geographically.
Second, workers in heavily affected municipalities have
lower foundational (but better technical) skills than their
regional and national counterparts, and already operate in
lagging local economies. Third, while eager to work,
discrete choice experiments about their job attribute
preferences show that they are averse to both, commuting and
relocating for work, even though less so than in Silesia and
Wielkopolska, the two other regions. Together this suggests
that there are important welfare and political economic
benefits to adequate job creation locally. The paper further
advances a data-driven viable-job-matching tool specifically
tailored to the Polish labor market and illustrates how it
could be used to assess the potential of local labor markets
and future investments to absorb the coal-affected workers
accounting for their skills profile, re/upskilling needs and
job attribute preferences.
Citation
“Christiaensen, Luc; Ferré, Céline; Gajderowicz, Tomasz; Wrona, Sylwia. 2022. Towards a Just Coal Transition: Labor Market Challenges and People’s Perspectives from Lower Silesia. Jobs Working Papers;Issue No. 69. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/38090 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”