Is the Polish diaspora returning home?

Is the Polish influx to Britain coming to an end? It's hard to believe when an estimated 1m Polish workers have come to the UK since 2004. But talk to the businesses who have been employing Poles and a different picture emerges.

Kris Ruszczynski had 50 Polish builders working for his company, Polonia, on the refit of the Home Office. At the end of 2007 that suddenly changed. "It hit me hard," said Ruszczynski. "Nearly 30 per cent of my team didn't come back after Christmas."

From agriculture to construction you will find a similar story. Even the airlines have noticed a change.

SkyEurope operated routes from several British cities to Poland but at the end of 2007 they closed them down. Tomasz Zeglinski of SkyEurope says the demand from Poland was simply no longer there. "It has been falling since summer 2007... We noticed there is not so many Polish people in the UK, they have simply gone."

Daniel Leszczynski, 23, is part of the Polish exodus. After three years in London he progressed from pot-washer to working on the accounts at the Peter Jones store in Sloane Square. "Job-wise, Poland's getting better and better," he said before he left. "I've been offered jobs but always refusing them. Now I think it's time to accept." Three days after he returned to his home town in central Poland, Daniel had a job as a car salesman.

Finding accurate data on the scale of this return migration is virtually impossible. We don't know who's here, let alone who's leaving. We do know the percentage of Poles applying to work under the workers' registration was down last year, by almost 10 per cent. Research conducted for the Polish Ministry of Labour last year also pointed to workers returning home.

So why are Poles forsaking high wages, guaranteed employment and bad weather for a less certain future back home? In the compact offices of the Polish Times, the editor Katarzyna Kopacz scans the ex-pat websites where there is much talk of who's going back home and when.

Katarzyna says the decision is mostly down to simple economics and how they affect those Polish migrants (most of them) who send a proportion of their earnings home. In 2004, she explained, £1 bought you 7.5 Polish zloty; today £1 buys you only 4.5 zloty. On top of that, Poland's economy is on the up, unemployment has halved since EU accession, and wages were up a quarter in some sectors last year.

The Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank is trying to find out which migrants are returning home and why. Danny Sriskandarajah of the IPPR
asks: "What would happen to the economy if these large numbers of Poles stopped coming?" In sectors such as farming and food processing, he warns, there are serious questions about how they will remain sustainable if the labour supply dries up.

Phil Innes, manager of an electronics factory in Bedford where a third of the workforce is Polish, has seen little evidence so far of Poles deserting. If they did, the factory would be in trouble and the only option would be to open a new factory abroad. "We would have struggled to recruit locally for the growth we have been through".

Would a Polish exodus be good news for British workers? Some business leaders believe the Poles have allowed us to paper over fundamental problems within our economy. David Frost, chief executive of the British Chambers of Commerce, says it's not just the fabled skills gap. "There is an attitude and work ethic problem in certain parts of the UK where people do not see the need or have the desire to work."

If the Poles lured home by an improving Polish economy and a weak pound won't do the work, who will?

Simon Cox presents 'The Investigation', BBC Radio 4, March 27, 8pm ·