The situation of the Polish household appliances in Poland is improving. Production and demand for employees are on the rise.

In 2017 producers sold almost 6 m large household appliances to retail chains. Electrolux wants to take advantage of this very beneficial market situation. The company is planning to increase employment and production capacities and to introduce new innovative products into the market. Within the next two years the company also aims to invest approx. PLN 50 m in factories in Poland. There are also plans of investing in product research laboratories operating in factories. The industry is afflicted by labour shortages, primarily in the middle segment, including technicians and people with vocational education.

“Electrolux has operated on the Polish market for a long time. A few years ago we made important steps towards the development of our business. Currently we have a 5,500-strong workforce. For the years to follow we are planning further development by increasing production and capacity and introducing new products to sell them on European markets, as most of our production is intended for exports. “Other planned activities include R&D projects and product research centres operating in factories,” Adam Cich, General Director of Electrolux, Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia, announced in an interview with the Newseria Biznes agency.

The data collected by CECED Poland, the association of domestic equipment industry employees, show that in 2017 domestic retail chains received nearly 6 m of home appliances (5.8 m a year before). Poland is one of the largest domestic equipment producers in Europe.

Favourable economic situation works to the advantage of the Swedish company Electrolux. In 2017 the concern purchased from the Broan-NuTone group the company named Best, the Polish producer of kitchen ventilation hoods. The factory in Zabrze, currently employing approx. 450 people, is going to benefit the most from Electrolux’s investment. Nearly PLN 30 m are to be spent on increasing the production capacity of the company, and the number of production lines is going to be doubled from five to up to ten. As a result, by 2020 the production capacity will have increased by up to 60 percent. In addition, the factory in Siewierz is going to receive PLN 20 m. The funds are to be spent on changing the technology and increasing production capacity. These investments will also lead to a rise in employment.

“We are planning to boost our production, which is associated with hiring more employees,” Adam Cich said. “Our global financial services centre in Kraków has changed substantially. We started from 300 people, and now we employ 700. These are people from various countries who work for Europe, the United States and Egypt.”

Electrolux has several centres in Poland ­– in addition to the financial centre in Kraków, there is a logistics centre in Oława and a warehouse in Pruszków.

Jobs in the household appliances sector rank third among the most attractive workplaces. In the survey by Randstad Employer Brand Research 47 percent of the respondents selected this sector. However, it is still experiencing labour shortages. This can be attributed primarily to the current education system and a relatively low popularity of vocational schools. 

 “We have problems with finding new employees, but they are not serious enough to influence our development. The middle sector, in which there is a shortage of technicians, is problematic – this is closely related to the Polish education system. We need technicians and vocational school graduates. We are also considering the future and various domains such as connectivity and the Internet, so we will also seek highly qualified specialists from the IT sector,” Adam Cich emphasised.