Poland reduces the retirement age to 65 for men and 60 for women

2019-10-13T09:28:18.850Z

Poland, in contrast with the European Union, lowers the threshold of retirement age, going from the current 67 years (the threshold introduced by the central government in 2012) to 65 for men and 60 for women. It was the electoral promise of the right-wing Right and Justice party now in the government, which then put it into practice. According to local experts, reducing the retirement age will have a limited effect on the fast-growing economy, but it could weigh on the state budget in a long perspective. Currently the level of unemployment in Poland is at historic lows since the early 1990s while there is a surge in wage growth. The Polish population - 38 million - is rapidly aging with the aging rate among the highest in the European Union. According to the estimates of the unions, around 331,000 workers could take advantage of the early withdrawal from the world of work already in 2018, that is 2.0% of the 16.3 million Polish workers. The government estimates the costs of reducing the retirement age to 2.4 billion euros in 2018, the equivalent of 0.5 points of annual GDP.